Yellow Noise of Sunrise
by Aelfgiva
Summary: Spencer Reid has lost his love in a terrible accident. Now, as he runs from new demons he turns to old patterns and obsessions, and slowly begins to lose his grip on who he is. Seq. to Heartland Blood, Rated M for language,drug abuse, sexual situations.
1. Chapter 1

**This story is dedicated, with affection and gratitude, to Reidemption. Without her, and Spencer Reid as my muses, it would not have been attempted.**

_Ample make this bed._

_Make this bed with awe;_

_In it wait till Judgment break_

_Excellent and fair._

_Be its mattress straight,_

_Be its pillow round;_

_Let no sunrise' yellow noise_

_Interrupt this ground._

_~ Emily Dickinson_

_Chapter One_

The aisle of the airplane is a smoky abyss. Spencer grabs the seat in front of him and pulls himself to his feet. He watches enormous tongues of flame licking at the outside of the craft, feels their terrific heat through the intact windows. It occurs to him that an explosion may be imminent. He covers his mouth and nose with his scarf, and pulls himself blindly toward the front of the plane. She was seated just a few seats ahead of him, he knows it without a doubt. He feels into the darkness ahead as he moves - one hand out in front, the other groping the seats -knowing he will surely run into her if he just keeps moving.

And then he sees her, standing in the aisle. She is staring at him, mouth slightly agape, fear in her eyes. She is wearing a gown of some sort and not her street clothes, which strikes him as very odd, and as he approaches, she is backing away. _Don't back away!...let me get to you! Let me get you out! _ The words scream through his mind, but he can't tell whether he has screamed the words out loud, or whether she hears him. She shakes her head, almost sadly, and backs away, _Spencer, I love you so much. I'm so sorry. So sorry Baby. I have to go now…have to go…._

As he watches her back away from him into the darkness, he feels a sting in his eyes and realizes he can't see. The smoke, the smoke stinging his eyes. If he can't see he can't get to her. His eyes are searing from the smoke, tearing up and overflowing, and he reaches up to wipe them dry and stabs himself in the eye with his finger.

Suddenly he is torn from the dream, back into the cold reality of his bed and his room. "Ow! Goddamn it!" He is sitting up then, holding his face in his hands, waiting for the pain to subside. And even long after it is gone he sits there, holding onto the limbo between the nightmare of his sleeping, and the impending nightmare of his waking reality. He screws his eyes shut tightly, willing it away, holding it at bay. Five minutes more. Five minutes more. Spencer eases himself back onto the damp sheets, eyes still closed. He thinks about a time when he would have leaned back into the bed to be greeted by warm, welcoming arms. She would pull him close in her sleep, willing him to stay near her a while longer, skin to skin, face to face, breath to breath. She would argue when he finally pulled away to go shower for work, smiling coyly at him …_no Spencer, stay with me, just a few minutes, just one kiss …_

Work. Maybe it's almost time. Work chases away his thoughts. Work fills his mind with other people's horrors, canceling out his own. He turns his head toward the nightstand and brushes his hair from his eyes. 5:00 am. Almost time. He could get up, make coffee, watch the morning news. He could get there early, again. No one would have to know how early he had arrived. He could be neck deep in files in no time.

Then it hits him. It's Sunday. He feels his stomach tighten. Unless they get an urgent call, a case that can't wait, he will be on his own today. Work will not offer any distractions this day. And the day will be . . from 5 am to 11 pm, eighteen hours during which he will have to find an escape from his thoughts. Eighteen hours during which he will have to talk to himself, about the normal grieving process, about allowing himself time to heal, about cleaning her clothes out of the closet and drawers, where he has left them untouched for nearly nine months now. For eighteen hours he will list for himself all the reasons he wants to live. Eighteen hours until he can crawl back into bed, hide in the sheets and the darkness. He sighs. He is already exhausted.

His eyes travel from the numbers on the clock to the bathroom door. He mentally measures the distance from his bed … perhaps five meters, to the bathroom cupboard. Five meters between himself and certain relief. His breath quickens. He imagines the vials of Dilaudid in the darkness of the cupboard. A box of unused syringes waiting there beside them. A rubber tourniquet where he had carefully placed it the last time he added more vials to the stash. Several mentions to his doctors, of pain from a previous shooting injury to his knee, had ensured that he collected enough of the drug to feel that he could be well-provided with it for some time, should he need to be. Everything just waiting there for him. Keeping all this on hand had felt good during his years of sobriety. Like a hidden badge. Under the counter the vials called to him and he ignored them, scoffed at them. And finally conquered them.

Spencer bites his lip and thinks. How long now? He ticks off the years, then the months. Three years, ten months, sixteen days. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed, then stares at the floor for a long few minutes, still except for an occasional hand rising to tuck stray hair behind his ear. Finally, he opens the nightstand and reaches into the back of the drawer, taking out a silk nightgown. He raises it timidly to his nose and draws a deep breath. Then bunching it all into his long fingers, he covers his face with it. He waits for the pain to subside, remembering that it hasn't ever done so, but hoping against hope. "Please…" he whispers to no one, willing the silence to miraculously give him an answer, and then listens as the sound of his sobbing rises and echoes against the walls in the quiet bedroom.

His anger rises too, as he realizes yet again how he hates the sound of his own despair. So weak. So helpless. Ridiculously pathetic. The last thought causes him to sharply inhale. He stops crying abruptly. He shoves the nightgown back into the back of the drawer, blinking to see through the tears still blurring his vision. As he leans, they fall on the gown, into the drawer, onto his notepad, her favorite book. He doesn't care. He slams the drawer closed. Wiping at his eyes with the side of his arm, he stalks quickly to the bathroom, avoiding the mirror as he kneels and tears open the cupboard door.

Spencer dumps the vials on the bathroom rug, and sits on the floor beside them, studying them. He imagines the liquid is sweet, sugar-water, its promise enticing. He knows the promise, and he knows it is a true one: he has tasted it many times. No one could say he hasn't tried. Four years ago he was lost, so lost. The job at the BAU was still a difficult one: he was always the underdog, the baby of the group, the last to be told, the last to figure it out, the last to be allowed to participate. The constant struggle for legitimacy, the need to feel valued, beat him down. Then came Tobias Henkel. Spencer was kidnapped, tortured, killed and revived by a madman. Two days that seemed to have no end. And even after they ended, they didn't. The ordeal simply morphed into something worse. Bad dreams, flashbacks, questions, doubts. But Henkel had provided one light in the dark fog that was Spencer's captivity: Dilaudid.

After his rescue, Dilaudid still beckoned, enticed, seduced. He had told himself that without it he had no hope of regaining his grip, of climbing out of the hole of memory. And all the while Spencer had tried to keep his footing; grateful that the team had come looking for him at all, he had struggled to deserve it. It hadn't been a struggle with a beginning and an end. It was not a struggle with a continuous but tedious uphill direction. It was crazy and twisted, littered with boulders and pitfalls. He fell again and again. It hadn't been pretty. He had disappointed his fellow team members – his only real friends – and he had disappointed himself. That was the worse of it, disappointing himself. Lunch hours spent locked in the restroom at the BAU, staring into the mirror at his sunken cheeks, his unkempt appearance, his eyes hollow with apathy and self-loathing. And then huddled on the floor riding out the high, before returning to his desk fighting to hold his head high, his hands steady, avoiding the curious glances of his colleagues. He had known that they knew…he still didn't have any understanding of how successful he had been at hiding his drug use. But they had mentioned it to him only cautiously, subtly, allowing him his space to play. They had trusted him, perhaps.

And now they knew him better. They had seen him control it, preserve his ability to work, stop it when he chose to in the end. They knew him, knew he could do it. Even if they saw it now, they would surely trust him again. After all, now they knew him to be competent, an equally valuable team member with the rest. Now he mattered more. The risk was less. Spencer knew Dilaudid created dependency slowly. He could play with it again, but with more care this time. He would be better at it. Yes.

He grabs a vial, and leans into the cupboard to retrieve the tourniquet and syringes. He stands and sets his tools on the countertop, and looks into the mirror. Hope. He runs water over a washcloth and washes his face, combs his hair back with his hands. He could do this. And find a little respite once in a while. After all, it had been months, and he isn't moving ahead…isn't finding any way to climb out of the living grave that Aubrey's death has flung him down into. This could buy him time. Yes. He sees a light spring suddenly into the large hazel eyes staring back at him, a light for the first time in weeks, and he smiles slightly. He takes a syringe, uncaps it, and tips a vial upside down, carefully inserting the needle into the rubber stopper, then drawing out the promise. He sets the syringe on the counter, rolls up the sleeve of his pajamas, picks up the rubber tourniquet and ties it onto his arm above his elbow. He flexes his arm and watches the familiar rise of his veins. Then he picks up the syringe, walks back to his bed and sits on down on the edge.

For just a minute, he stops, staring into space, his beautiful mind recalculating the risks and the benefits. Spencer Reid, who knows himself to be a genius but has never considered himself terribly creative, repeats to himself all of the best arguments he has created in the past ten minutes for medicating his despair into oblivion. He feels more hopeful about his future than he has in months. Then he pops the needle into his vein and pushes the plunger.

Nimble fingers quickly release the tourniquet and the drug bombards his brain. He falls against the pillows, back into the arms of a sweet, sweet dream.

/~~/

This story is to be continued in the coming days! Please stay tuned….and I welcome comments. I hope you enjoyed it.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

Reid shifted in his seat, trying to will himself to concentrate. Forcing his body to move every few minutes helped him to stay awake, stay in the room, hold onto his tentative grasp on the conversation. He crossed and uncrossed his legs to stay alert, he propped his elbows on the table, then folded his arms across his chest, he leaned back, then leaned forward in his chair. He stared at the photographs in the file in front of him as if he actually saw their subjects, and allowed his vision to blur over, welcoming even thirty seconds of nothingness. The voices of his colleagues droned on. He knew that it was time to punctuate the mix with a thought of his own, so that they would know he could contribute, that nothing was different. "The unsub is likely under thirty, and employed. He would have the means and mobility to change venues easily…"

There. He marveled at his own intelligence, always ready to kick in even through this self-imposed haze, as he registered the nods of his colleagues. Even now, his mind could reach deftly into stores of past knowledge, flying through compartments, flinging open doors, until it found the appropriate bit of information to pull out and use. His mind – the one thing he could always depend upon. Like a one true friend, it never betrayed him. He combed his hair back with his fingers and studied the faces of the others to ascertain whether they held any suspicions about his contribution to the team meeting. And once again, he was satisfied that they did not.

Across the table, Derek Morgan avoided Reid's eyes and studied him covertly. He knew something was up. He'd known for weeks that something wasn't right with his young friend. Reid was fidgeting, distracted, unfocused. It was getting worse every day. And it made no sense. When Reid's fiancé was killed in a plane crash – was it near a year ago now? – Morgan had panicked for him. The young genius had had a life of solitude, his brain always keeping others at bay, intimidating them, as if Reid were not quite of this earth, not really one of the human race. In rare moments of confidence, Reid had relayed to Morgan painful memories from a childhood where peers were indifferent at best, predators at worst. Sure, they all had their ghosts – Morgan's childhood sexual abuse, Prentiss' difficult adolescence and abortion, Hotch's beatings at the hands of an alcoholic father. Gideon's ghosts had caused him to disappear without a goodbye, and Rossi had nearly run out of fingers upon which to count ex-wives and lovers. Morgan knew that the best profilers had dipped, themselves, into darker corners of the human experience. That didn't mean the ghosts ever won.

But Reid was something different. Morgan had sensed from the beginning a fragility in the young man, something almost ethereal, a soft essence floating above the rest of them along with his superior mind. It had infuriated Morgan in the early days, that Gideon would hire this kid, this sniveling, under-aged, inexperienced, incompetent weakling, offering the team some story about his being super smart. Big deal. Smart didn't help him aim his gun, or move faster. It didn't help him stay out of the fucking way when need be.

And then Morgan saw it – like the rest of them did. Those brilliant sparks of blinding mental agility. Something he had never seen in any other person. Reid's mind was like a computer; it stored things, it sorted, it recalled, it imprinted and discarded, quickly, flawlessly. His mind was their tool. And over time, none of the rest of his inadequacies mattered. And one day he was suddenly out in the field, vest strapped on, gun displayed, doing what they all did, and just as well. In the end, Reid was an excellent – if unbelievably young and terribly unique – addition to the team. Morgan had seen something else too in Reid: a steel core. The kid was unflappable when he was terrified. He clicked into ultra-calm, ultra scientific mode, and conducted himself fearlessly. Morgan had realized that he trusted Reid to have his back, every time. Even when the Tobias Henkel thing happened, Reid didn't break.

"Morgan, you with us?" Hotch was asking.

"Yeah, yeah…so what is the plan when we get there?"

Reid shifted in his chair and lifted his chin from his hand, "We leave today?" He blinked several times and tucked his hair behind his ears. He closed the file, and then opened it again to study some detail in the documentation.

Morgan had never told Reid that he still dreamt about it – about watching Reid strapped in a chair, the barrel of a pistol against his forehead, the click, click, click, and they wondered which chamber would hold the bullet. They had watched it all on camera – thanks to the demented mind of the unsub – and watched the kid stare the psycho down again and again, as he was beaten, tortured, shot up with drugs. They had all been helpless, watching and knowing that the youngest of them would surely die before their eyes. Morgan, these five years later, could still not get the image of Reid's face out of his mind. Reid's face staring into the gun, chin ever higher, defiant. The more the kid had been tortured, the more his tough spirit rose up to stand before the unsub and demand some dignity in the face of a certain death. Asked to give up one of his team members, his friends, he answered, "NO" again and again as the gun clicked through the empty chambers, once, twice, three times. Until he had devised a plan for getting word to them of his whereabouts. Only then did he give the unsub what he wanted, but he did it in a lie. Unmoved, unintimidated, unflappable. Scrawny, trembling, geeky, inexperienced Spencer Reid, with his spine of sheer steel. Unbreakable, he had killed the unsub himself in the end, with the man's own gun.

They had found him shaking, on the ground beside the body and a shovel, dirty and bruised and bleeding, having just dug his own grave. He had stood then to meet them on unsteady legs, only to fall into Hotch's arms, a mere boy again. The months after that had continued to show him a strong, tough agent. But he was also a drug addict. They suspected, hesitated. Perhaps they had coddled him. But who wouldn't have? None of them . . . not at that time anyway . . . had lived through the kind of torture that Reid had. Once, he had said that the photos of the dead, tortured victims were different for him now, because he knew what they were thinking as they slowly died. A terrible change had been forced upon Reid's psyche. No one could deny it, no one could reverse it. All they could do was wait for his youth to catch up to his experience, wait for the heart – that in Reid often took a backseat to the mind – to heal. And the drugs had been part of that journey for him.

Now, as Morgan watched Reid gather his paperwork and dump it carelessly into his messenger bag, he wondered if the young man had a secret. If the jitters and stammering and fidgeting were more than just stress. Reid had seemed to handle Aubrey's death with grace. He hadn't even taken time off. He had been a little quiet, had kept to himself even more than usual if that were possible. But he handled it. Morgan had admired the way the kid dove into their work, never missing a step, and all the while the loss must have been . . . unbearable. Aubrey had been one of the few good, solid things in Reid's life. She was obviously good for him. He changed in the months he knew her – he was calmer, warmer even. His face changed; he rarely knit his brows into a deep furrow the way he always had – a gesture alarming in someone so young. He spoke about her to all of them with abandon, with his eyes alight with worship. When the accident happened, he must have had the foundation ripped out from under him. But he didn't show it. He kept working. He was a little more unkempt, he let his hair grow long again, didn't always tie his ties straight, but he was working and effective. He _handled_ it.

But now . . . something had changed. Something was wrong.

"Hey Reid," Morgan said as he fell into step beside his young friend. "You wanna get something to eat later? A beer?"

"No thanks," Reid said politely without missing a beat.

"Hey, why not? You working too hard, Pretty Boy? You seem distracted. And you're getting skinnier I swear. You need some real food."

"I'm not distracted Morgan. I'm busy." Reid said curtly and slipped into the john.

Morgan stood looking after him, thinking about following. And hesitating to push. Reid could get testy when pushed, and Morgan didn't want to alienate him. He wanted communication lines open. His gut told him that would be important somehow.

"He all right?" Hotch was asking, stopping in the hallway to watch the exchange.

"Yeah, I think so," answered Morgan, still staring at the restroom door. "He seems . . . "

"I know, " said Hotch.

Morgan's eyes met Hotch's for a moment, in mutual understanding. Then Hotch moved on. Morgan resolved to keep a closer eye on Reid. Yes. He would keep him close, be a friend, make sure he was on track. Something told him his young friend was going to need all the help he could get in coming days.

~~/~~

Reid leaned into Hotch's office, his hand balanced on the doorframe. "You wanted to see me?"

"Close the door."

Reid felt heat rise to his face. He hated being called into Hotch's office, it freaked him out. Even for a good reason. He never knew whether it was a good reason or a bad one. He never was good at reading people, reading situations. He never knew if danger was imminent. That lack of sense had plagued him all his life, and now once again he found himself cursing it.

"Sit down."

Reid dropped into a chair opposite Hotch's desk. "Am I in trouble?" he joked. He had gotten better at jokes through the years of working at the BAU. He was ever overly-literal in his thinking, and humor had had to be learned, like any other skill.

"No." Hotch finished sorting papers into the drawer files, and leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. He looked at Reid sitting there, all legs and arms and jaw and cheekbones and various other sharp angles, his leg absently tapping time to some inaudible tune, his fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt cuff. "Reid, is everything . . . is anything troubling you lately?"

"What do you mean?" Reid glanced briefly at Hotch's eyes and then studied the titles of the books on the shelf, the same ones which had been there for the past five years.

"Just wondering. You seem to be a little far away lately. Everything okay?" Hotch watched something flicker nervously across Reid's chiseled features. A brief second of irritation in the eyes.

"I'm fine."

Hotch exhaled slowly, choosing the words. "You're not fine."

Reid looked squarely at Hotch then, and set his jaw. He didn't answer. His gaze dared Hotch to say it.

"You're using."

"I'm not."

"And you're lying, " Hotch stared back. Knowing well that Reid knew the signs of addiction, lying being one.

"I'm not," Reid spat, and looked away toward the window, "I'm not using. I just . . . just a few times. I am dealing with some things. But I'm dealing. I'm fine."

"Your work is up to par, so far, and I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Reid. But don't think I don't see it. You can't maintain a drug habit and function efficiently. You know that."

"I don't have a drug habit!" hissed Reid, and stood up. He paced across the room and back again, stopping before Hotch's desk and glaring down at his boss. "I said I'm fine, and I am!"

Hotch sat silent, looking up at him, waiting.

"What do you do Hotch? Do you cope perfectly with everything? How about that bottle you keep in the desk? Any others? How often do you indulge?"

"We aren't talking about me here, Reid."

"Yeah, well maybe we should!" He turned to pace across the room again. "Maybe we both have our habits! How do you cope? How do you live with . . . memories?" Reid stood studying the far wall.

"Why don't you take a week off, Spencer."

Reid turned to look at Hotch. "I don't want to take a week off."

"I think you should."

Reid sat down again. "Hotch, I swear, I'm okay. I am. Please don't make me take time off. I want to work. I have to keep working. The team needs me."

Hotch was silent. He stared down at the desk, considering. Perhaps work was the best thing. If the kid wasn't needing to detox . . . but maybe it hadn't gone that far. Yet. And Reid did have a point about the drinking. They all had their crutches. Hotch didn't handle his own losses well, that was for damn sure. And he had twenty years on Reid, years in which to learn to better balance the stress of the job with the strain of a personal life. Reid was really still such a kid.

Hotch spoke quietly, affectionately then. "I worry about you. I know you are not fine. Just promise me that you will get help if you need it. And you will tell us if you need anything."

"I will Hotch. I will." Reid rose and stood uncertainly, shuffling from one foot to the other, impatient to be dismissed. He had heard the real concern in Hotch's voice and was genuinely grateful for it. But he had found a way to hold on, for now. He was able to function without the degree of misery in which he had wallowed for the past ten months. And he wasn't going to give that up. Not yet.

"And don't let it interfere with your work, Reid, or. . . well, you know I can't let that happen." Hotch added quietly.

"I know." Reid felt his stomach tighten. "I know. I won't."


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

Reid stopped before the door of the dark office building and stood there, hands in his pockets, hesitating. He hadn't been to a Beltway Clean Cops meeting in over a year. Now, he was afraid of running into old faces, answering questions about why he had quit going to meetings, the dumbest thing for a former addict to do.

The thing was, Reid had never really thought of himself as an addict. After all, he had not really detoxed in any formal sense. He had researched Dilaudid, he knew how to do it and he knew the medical risks. He had simply weaned himself off, when he had had enough of it. The stash in the bathroom cupboard lay forlorn when he had turned his back on it willingly, and without help from anyone else, friend or doctor. There weren't many things about himself that Spenser Reid particularly liked or respected, but he knew he was tough and he didn't need other people . . . much. So he had quit it himself, and done it just fine.

But what nagged him through the three years was the craving. Sometimes during a tough case. Sometimes when his mom was having a difficult time or when memories of his dad became overwhelming. Definitely after Aubrey . . . the crash. He had reluctantly admitted to himself that when he had indulged in it before it had adversely affected certain areas of his life – his job, his relationships with the team. He had felt out of control, drifting. And that was a feeling Reid's organized mind didn't like. He hadn't wanted to go back to that feeling. And he hadn't wanted to drift himself right out of the only job he could imagine doing. So he had turned to meetings when the cravings nagged at him.

He had usually sat at the back, listening, not quite participating. He hated to speak before an audience anyway. A few times – at groups that had become accustomed to his presence – he had finally gotten up to introduce himself, because to neglect to do so at that point would have appeared rude and arrogant. And Reid was never intentionally rude. He knew that it was important for people to speak about their experience – however briefly – in order for the meetings to matter, in order for people to learn from one another. But he wasn't sure how much anyone could learn from his experience anyway, since he hadn't fallen as deeply into addiction as most of them had. He had never lost family, custody of children, a marriage, a job. He had pretty much skated along semi-comfortably.

Now as he stood before the door, he wasn't sure why he wanted to go in. The day had been tough. Hotch knew. Reid had tried to tell him he wasn't using – didn't "using" mean he couldn't stop himself? and that wasn't the case – but Hotch wasn't hearing any of it. And Hotch had sent a subtle message that Reid's job could be jeopardized. Reid felt a chill when he considered it, and then pushed the thought away – he would not lose his job. Last time he had been much less careful, much less knowledgeable about the drug, he was new to the job, they weren't invested in him, and he still didn't get fired. That wasn't going to happen. So why go to this meeting? He knew he didn't want to talk. He knew he didn't want to run into someone he knew. He just wanted to be left alone. But maybe . . . to just listen a bit. To assure himself that he didn't belong here, with people who truly fought addiction. Maybe hearing some of their stories would make him feel better about the day and the discussion in Hotch's office. Make him stop thinking about it.

Inside, the room was brightly lit. Reid made his way quietly to a seat in the back, feeling the cold of the chair's metal through his trousers. A woman was tearfully recounting her battle during the last month with alcohol. She had taken a sick leave from her job with the community patrol. She had begun the habit of locking herself in the garage to drink while her three-year-old child cried and banged on the door from inside the house. She drowned out the child's voice with music. She had done this day after day. When her husband came home from work she would go out with girlfriends and drink. This had become her existence. She had lost her role in life – as a mother and homemaker. Now her husband had filed for divorce and would take full custody of their child.

"This," thought Reid, "this isn't me. I am not losing anything."

A man stood and introduced himself as a former detective. He had lost his job after this habit of dipping into the meth he confiscated, got to be too much to hide. He had left his gun on the kitchen table, where his small son picked it up and aimed it at his sister. His life was out of control. He locked the gun away, but he was still using. "This drug is more important than my life, my kid's lives. I'm trying to quit, but I keep going back. I keep going back." He looked out into the audience at no one in particular, seeming to search for an answer. His eyes fell on Reid, and he stared at the young man for several seconds. Reid knew that the staring was unconscious, but he squirmed in his chair, feeling revealed, naked. As the man sat down and the next speaker rose, Reid quietly left.

~~/~~

At home, he shivered as he heated the leftover coffee from that morning. He seemed to always be cold now, despite the fact that it was late summer. But he knew that he had lost some weight. The drug unfortunately gave him the runs, and made him nauseous. He told himself that it was a good choice of drug for him, since he couldn't take it too often or he wouldn't be able to eat at all. Losing a little weight wasn't a big deal. He knew he didn't ever get dehydrated, or anything serious.

He should eat tonight. Just something light. Some soup. Maybe later, after he settled in a while.

He heard the sound of children in the street. An impromptu ball game. A dog's bark. These sounds seemed to intrude upon his peace. He wondered why he felt that way, had so often felt that way in this life: happy sounds – sounds that other people would classify as happy ones – only served to annoy him. Lately they felt aggressive, as if the sounds themselves were alive, and preying upon him. He walked to the stereo and flipped a switch, filling the room with Handel.

As he stripped out of his work clothes, he caught sight of the bathroom scale. He had meant to put it away – he never used it anyway. Avoiding the mirror as he walked into the bathroom, he picked up the scale and carried it back into the bedroom, then shoved it into a far corner of his bedroom closet. Then he set the clothes hamper on top of it.

He put on a sweatshirt and old trousers, and walked into the living room, where he found his pile of books waiting. Every Sunday Reid would add books to a pile on the coffee table. Books that were to be read the following week. He usually read fifteen in a week, easily. Lately he had been too busy, and so the pile had gotten too big. There were now three piles, forty odd books. He'd get around to them. Often on Friday after work he would stop at a local book store, and spend an hour or two picking out what he wanted. He might even have a cup of outrageously but excellent coffee while he browsed. These trips were Reid's Disneyland. Or on Saturday he would visit the libraries of nearby universities for upper-level books in the sciences or philosophy. He would relish the experience of being the only person wandering down some obscure aisle of tomes in some fourth floor paradise, to reward himself after three hours of searching with checking out just the right prizes. He would always be light of heart as he took them home – like little packages of new knowledge, little story-tellers, nourishment for his ever-starving mind. These books would be added to his pile of those to read for the week. But lately the pile was a little big, so he had decided not to visit the bookstore or libraries. He had come straight home for many Fridays now, and stayed in on Saturdays for the most part, unless he went out for groceries. But he hadn't had a need for much of that lately either.

Reid stretched out of the sofa and settled back against overstuffed pillows. He searched the titles of the books for one that would especially appeal at this moment. _The Future of Astronomy_ by Edward Charles Pickering. He opened the new book and buried his nose in the pages, inhaling the scent of the print. Nothing like a new book. How did people prefer those electronic readers, anyway? You couldn't even turn a page, or smell one. He turned to the introduction and placed an elegant tapered index finger aside the text, sliding it down steadily as he devoured the pages at the rate of 20,000 words per minute.

A sound from outside. A woman's laughing. The music had stopped; he hadn't noticed. He paused, finger still resting on the page, and stared into the wall as he listened. A young woman. Such a sweet sound. Then a photograph flashed through his mind before he could stop it. Auburn curls, gleaming blue-gray of eyes, a "ha!" deep in her throat before the wonderful giggles that wafted away above them. Himself, lying back on the grass and pulling her down with him. Her hair spilling over his face, the perfume in his nose, and her laughing drifting up into the sky.

"Aubrey." He was startled by the sound of his own voice in the silent apartment. He had said it out loud. His heart rate increased, as he sat in silence, startled once again by a memory and trapped in it. It was all he had. These random pictures that would come into his head and wound him. He hated them, and he grabbed them and held on. Because he knew as he grabbed them that they were all of her that existed now. He would never make a new memory with her.

Never. Make. A. New. Memory. It was over. This was all he would ever have. Random pictures.

Reid lay his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes, as the book slid to the floor. He held onto the feeling, the strands of her hair brushing his cheek, his forehead, his nose. The smell of her. The curve of her, rolling against his body as she laughed. She fit against his bony frame like she was made to do it, from the beginning, from forever, soft curves settling into him, into his neck, his arms, against his stomach, his groin . . . her mouth covering his . . . his hand brushed his trousers and encouraged his mind to fall deeper into the past, where she was. He clutched at his hardess and then absently kneaded it. His need grew, and his frustration, and he quickly undid the button and zipper, reaching inside now, his hand covering the heat of his excitement.

But then, suddenly, it began to fade. _No… No..._ The momentum of his fantasy was broken. Aubrey was slipping away and he needed more. He needed more. He didn't want to work so hard to see her, to feel her. He wanted her there. He wanted her touching him again. He then realized with a stab that she was not and would not be there. Ever. And the familiar rush of despondency overtook him, replacing the heat of this urge.

There it was again. . . the laughter rising up from the yard below. Carefree, as if he weren't lying there hurting, it seemed far away from him even though it was just below his windows. And then something else rushed over him, so strong and fast that it took his breath with it. Spencer Reid was lonely – lonely to the depth of his soul.

_Alone_ was something that he had never feared the way most people do, in fact he sought it out as something he cherished and in which he took comfort and found solace. But this thing that he felt now, and had increasingly felt in recent months, was something that he had rarely known in his life: to be truly _lonely_. A human being craving other human beings and yet somehow deprived of contact. Loneliness. Reid lay on the sofa, his hand still inside his pants, but not moving now, and thought about this definition, trying to understand how it could possibly fit his existence. He, someone so comfortable with solitude. _Loneliness_.

The foolishness he felt as he re-zipped his pants made his face burn and his eyes sting. He couldn't even do this right. Pleasure himself. He was beyond pathetic. Beyond hope. Beyond any hope. He felt apart from the human race now, even more than he had. A pressure rising in his chest threatened to burst his rib cage wide open. He gritted his teeth against it and willed his eyes to stop burning. He thought about all the years of feeling less than even adequate – like someone, some _thing_ from another planet. He was always the child in a class of young adults, his brain keeping him moving ahead in school at a rapid pace – and not a pace conducive to his emotional development or well-being. He never fit, never came close. He never knew who he was in relation to other people. After the age of ten or so, he had rarely come into contact with other kids his own age. He was thrown prematurely into a world of adolescents. And later, as he found himself on just at the edge of manhood, he was surrounded by adults. He had learned to embrace solitude. There, within it, he didn't have to deal with ridicule. He had learned to welcome it, to be at peace with his reality, with who he was in relation to other people. He was destined to live at the edge of their world, watching, sometimes communing but never really belonging. His mind kept him apart from them. And more – his awkwardness, his strangeness – he knew this was true. These things would keep him from every being a part with other people. Only with Aubrey had he felt some deep, permanent human kinship.

And so now, lying on the sofa, having failed to even bring himself to the enjoyment of his own sense of manhood, and unite with another person even in his own imagination, Spencer Reid felt terribly alone, to an extent that he never quite had before. He sighed as he stood and walked down the hallway to his bedroom, and through to the bathroom, where his comfort was waiting in the dark of a cupboard, where not even an erection would matter one way or another.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

Derek Morgan had checked his watch for the fifth time in half an hour. He gazed at the images floating across the television screen without really seeing, his fingers carelessly tapping the remote to flip through channels. An hour ago he had gotten the hotel management to let him into Reid's room, so he could sit up and wait.

New Orleans was always the same. Warm, wild, enticing. Morgan relished the times they had here, when the rare case demanded. He liked the nightlife, the bars, the music, the people. He would normally be out enjoying it. But tonight was different. Reid had been out going on six hours.

And he wasn't answering his phone.

When Reid walked in the door, he wouldn't be happy. He hated being fussed over. But Morgan had a ready excuse, and a good one. His friend hadn't been himself for weeks now. The disheveled appearance, the forgetfulness, the fits of temper, the brooding. These were all classic signs of Reid doing drugs. Like the last time they went down this road with their youngest agent, the team was turning a blind eye . . . so far. Morgan knew that Hotch had confronted Reid, and then given him a pass. As long as he was doing the job, that had been the deal. Hotch had told Morgan about the meeting in confidence, knowing that Morgan was going to make certain that Reid didn't throw the job away.

Tonight was the last straw for Morgan. He grew increasingly agitated as he waited. He imagined Reid lying in an alley, stoned. Or worse, sober and beaten. He had tried his phone at least a dozen times, to no avail. New Orleans was a bad town for Reid. Last time they were here, Reid had ignored calls from the team, and missed a plane. He had been with Ethan that time too. Ethan, an old college friend and rival for Reid, a musician, and as far as Morgan was concerned, a bad influence. God, Reid had no friends from the past, at least as far as the team knew. Just this one. Why? What was so important about this friendship? Morgan's gut twisted as he fought to stay calm. Another hour, Morgan told himself, and he would not feel the least bit guilty about rummaging through Reid's stuff and finding the Dilaudid.

"Push me, Reid," he said aloud to himself, and threw the remote across the room.

~~/~~

Reid glanced at his phone again and turned the ringer to vibrate. Morgan was annoying the shit out of him.

"You need to get that?" Ethan smiled slightly as he sipped his drink.

"No, it's nothing." And it was nothing. Reid knew Morgan was just checking up. If it were something about the case Hotch, Prentiss, everyone would be tracking him down. Seven calls from Morgan meant that Morgan needed to get a life.

Reid had watched Ethan finish his last set for the evening. A busy, but laid-back piano bar in the old section of town. Ethan's stomping ground. It felt good to Reid too. The conversation and laughter around him, the warm tones of the piano, the cognac, had all lulled him into a feeling of leaving his life behind for a few hours. He had been up since dawn, and the case had been grueling. He had worked facts, statistics, theories all day long with the team, and this respite was welcome.

He sat in an easy chair near the front of the large room, and watched Ethan's hands on the keys. Last time he had come to New Orleans for work he had looked Ethan up. After many years, they still did the same easy dance around one another. A little bit of rivalry, a little bit of affection. On Ethan's part, a lot of attraction. Last time Ethan had chided him gently about the drugs. And after, Reid had gone back to Virginia and cleaned up. This time it wouldn't be so simple. This time Reid had a motive other than chatting with his old friend. As he watched Ethan play he mused that he had surprised himself. He wasn't the least bit nervous about what he intended to do.

And now, after Ethan had finished for the night, they sat together with a last drink. Just like last time, a long, slow conversation.

"I thought you said you were clean, Reid."

"I am. I was."

"You look like shit."

"Thank you." Spencer tipped his face to meet Ethan's gaze, the side of his mouth twitching into a smirk. Ethan saw it, the curve of the beautiful mouth, and felt himself flush. He looked away toward the crowd, feigning interest.

"You know what I mean. What's going on?"

"I'm fine. Just tired. We work hard." Spencer studied his glass of cognac and licked his lips. His hand shook and it made the thick liquid slosh slightly against the side of the vessel. He watched it bleed slowly back down.

Ethan was looking him up and down now. "And hard work does this to you? Look at you. . . Maybe you need to rethink your line of work."

"You don't like the way I look?" Reid's gaze was unflinching, boring into Ethan's dark eyes. Willing a reaction.

"Spencer, don't."

"Don't what."

Ethan broke the gaze and looked away again. Minutes passed as they both sipped at their drinks in silence. Finally, Ethan sighed and looked back at Spencer's face. "What do you want?"

"Take me home with you."

"What?"

Spencer said it again, this time in a whisper, which couldn't be heard over the sound of the bar, but Ethan watched his lips say the words he couldn't believe he was hearing, "Take me home."

Ethan breathed in deeply, and reached to set his glass on the bar. His hand was shaking and he nearly banged it into the edge. He stood up, brought out his wallet, and threw a few bills on the bar. "Come on . . ."

~~/~~

They walked in relative silence to Ethan's apartment, save little comments here and there from Ethan about the architecture. Reid walked close to Ethan, listening and taking in the sounds and sights of the night steet. He ignored the tremors in his gut, telling himself that he knew what he wanted, he knew what he was doing.

Once inside the door, Ethan turned to Reid, and asked, "What are you doing?"

Spencer smiled, "What do you mean, what am I doing? I thought it was clear," he looked down as he unzipped his jacket, allowing his hair to fall into his eyes so that Ethan couldn't read them. His hands shook and he scraped the side of his finger against the zipper. He hoped that it wouldn't bleed.

Ethan watched the struggle and reached out and put his hands over Reid's, stopping him. They stood face to face in the hall, close, each feeling the other's breaths. Ethan whispered, "You don't…like men. Remember?"

Spencer stood quiet and unmoving, his head down.

After a time, Ethan asked, "Has it changed?"

"I don't know," came the soft answer. Reid looked up into his friend's eyes. "Please, just don't ask me questions. I'm here." The large hazel eyes that had broken Ethan's heart seven years ago still made him stop breathing, just as they had then. He watched a nervous twitch along Reid's long jaw line. He stepped toward Reid, and as he had done seven years ago he traced a finger along that jaw, down the side of the beautiful plane of his cheekbone. Across the full lips.

And suddenly Reid was on him. He pushed Ethan back against the wall, he kissed his mouth so hard it hurt. He bit Ethan's lip, and then bit his shoulder through his shirt. Reid's hands tore Ethan's shirttails out of his trousers, and groped the front of him below his belt.

"Spencer," Ethan began, "Spencer, slow down, Man . . ." and laughed.

Finally, Ethan extricated himself from the wall, and backed into the living room. He smiled widely and nervously, and threw his jacket on the sofa. "You want a drink?" and he withdrew a bottle of Scotch from a cupboard.

Spencer walked slowly into the room, his eyes down. He brushed his hair back. He sniffed. He stood on one leg and then the other. He tossed his jacket onto a chair. His long hands fingered his tie, and he finally undid it and slid it off and stood awkwardly, holding it in his hands. He bit his bottom lip. Ethan saw all of this, and his groin ached.

He took a swig of the whiskey, and thought about the situation. Years ago he had wanted just this. He had watched Spencer for years, and had wanted him badly. He had sent out subtle signals, but Spencer didn't pick up on them, or pretended not to – he hadn't known which. Ethan watched Spencer hide from female attention, and knew that his friend lacked confidence in many ways. And still Ethan had tried one afternoon. He had seduced, cajoled, begged. He had made a fool of himself. Spencer had allowed Ethan to kiss him, to rub his shoulders, to undress him. He had allowed Ethan to stroke his body, tease his cock, and whisper things that couldn't be taken back. And then abruptly Spencer had asked Ethan to stop. He got up and shakily dressed, telling him that he was sorry but he just wasn't into men, and he couldn't go further. He had finished dressing, and departed in a rush. Ethan had been left feeling foolish, naked. Throughout two more months of classes, neither had spoken of their encounter, although they remained close companions. Then Ethan had heard through the grapevine that Spencer was sleeping with one of the female professors – who knew how much truth there was in that. If it were true, Spencer had been very discreet. Or perhaps he had just hidden it from Ethan.

When Ethan left for New Orleans, he didn't bother to say goodbye. He didn't know exactly how to. He wrote an email to Spencer some time afterward, after he was settled, had matured a bit, and had found a boyfriend. He wrote then of trivialities, small talk. He didn't phone him – he didn't want to hear Spencer's voice again. But he had thought of Spencer's face every week of every month of every year, through every event in his own life, through other relationships, hardships, good times. Then the last time Spencer had come to town and bothered to look Ethan up, Ethan had been thrilled to see the familiar face again. He had felt good about the meeting: they had chatted, had a few drinks, caught up, shook hands. Like old times. No tension. Ethan had been concerned about Spencer's health, and had told him so. He remembered what he had said, something to the effect that a New Orleans musician knew addiction when he saw it. Spencer had sat and gazed at him through long bangs and long lashes, and listened without saying a word. But three weeks after the visit, Spencer had emailed a thank you, and told Ethan that he was clean.

Now, here he was, the same old Spencer. Troubled, brilliant, dark-spirited, timid, beautiful. But there was an edge this time. Something hard, almost cold. There was a dullness in Spencer's eyes that alarmed Ethan. Drugs? Something else? And here Spencer was, suggesting sex to Ethan. As if there had been no history there, no pain. The whiskey stung Ethan's lip where Spencer had bit him, and suddenly he was angry. He took another swig and walked toward Spencer, holding out the bottle. "Go on," he offered.

Spencer stared through his long hair at Ethan, his head tilted and his chin low. He didn't speak but just stood there, looking at Ethan, waiting for him. Then with one blow, with the one free hand, Ethan hit him. Open-handed, hard across the face. It felt good. Spencer, surprised, lost his footing and fell backward onto the hard wood floor with a cry. Before he could raise himself up, Ethan was on him, straddling him. He wanted to hurt him. Ethan took a swallow of whiskey and put his mouth on Spencer's, spitting the liquor into him. He bit his jaw. He put his hands in Spencer's hair and grabbed it hard, and kissed him so that he could feel Spencer struggling to breathe. He bit his mouth back, the way Spencer had bitten him. Then he drew back and looked into Spencer's face, holding him by the hair so that it hurt, so that his captive couldn't look away. "What the hell do you want?"

"I want…" Spencer panted, "I…."

"What?" hissed Ethan into his face.

Then Ethan saw Spencer set his jaw, and he met Ethan's gaze with a coolness that made his friend gasp. "I want you to .. f f fuck me."


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five_

Ethan woke with a start, feeling someone beside him in the bed. He opened his eyes to see Spencer lying on his belly, in the same position he had been when Ethan had rolled off of him, after the last shuddering, thunderous climax inside the young man. He listened carefully and heard a faint sound of steady breathing. He turned over and looked at the clock: 1:34 am. He switched the lamp off and softly settled back beside Spencer.

He wondered about the drugs, how long it had been going on. How far it had gone. How far it would go. He wanted to check Spencer's arms for track marks, but they were folded under his body. He cautiously brushed back the hair that had fallen over Spencer's face and was hiding it from view. Spencer looked peaceful now, sleeping. But the sharp angles of his bone structure betrayed a slight lack of nutrition, and the circles around his eyes were even darker than Ethan remembered. "What have you done to yourself, Baby," he whispered.

The sex between them had been angry, fast, furious. Ethan was angry throughout most of it. The way Spencer had approached it had made Ethan not care if it hurt. If Spencer wanted to be fucked, that was what he was going to get. After hearing Spencer's cold request as he lay sprawled on the floor after Ethan had knocked him down, Ethan had dragged, pulled and pushed him across the living room floor and onto the sofa, where he had roughly robbed Spencer of his clothing. Spencer's silence, and his apprehensive wide-eyed surprise had only spurred Ethan on. The hurt and frustrated yearning of seven years cried out, and none of it was tender. He pinned Spencer down and groped him roughly. He put his hands on him, he licked him, he sucked him, he bit him. The only time he kissed Spencer was to cover his mouth hard with his own and suck the breath from him. He had poured the whiskey on Spencer's stomach and genitals and then licked it all off until the skin was raw. As he took Spencer's cock into his mouth, he had taken great delight in making Spencer writhe and finally scream out. Ethan robbed him of dignity, he robbed him of energy, he robbed him of cum, and if he had known how to take his spirit and fling it to the floor and trample it he would have. Spencer's body was no longer the vessel of the soul of an old friend, but merely a beautiful thing that had tormented Ethan's dreams, and then had tauntingly eluded his grasp.

When Spencer was finally crying and shivering from spent emotion and orgasm, Ethan had thrown him onto his stomach and spread his buttocks. He didn't ask if Spencer wanted it. He didn't care. He was intent on exacting his revenge, his reward, his price for being taunted so carelessly this evening, after seven years of wanting. Still, he didn't have the heart to rip into Spencer, but entered him slowly, panting out his anger loudly instead. And then, after his cock was enveloped within Spencer's core, after the last wall had been breeched, the last bit of dignity stripped, he let himself go, and rode Spencer hard. Ethan heard the springs of the sofa protest, and its feet jump slightly on the wood of the floor as he pumped into the young mans body. When he came, he yelled, and said, "Is that what you wanted, Spencer, you fucking genius?" Then he laughed as he climbed off his conquest, and left him there. Ethan walked calmly down the hall into his bathroom and took a shower.

In the privacy of the shower, he had quietly wept, and the tension of the evening left him. Ten minutes later, as he toweled himself dry, he found himself praying that Spencer would speak to him again someday. There was no sound in the apartment when he came out of the bathroom, and he felt a heaviness in his chest. He started down the hall and into the kitchen to get a glass of something to drink and then felt his gut jump as he spotted Spencer's messenger bag still on the floor, lying open.

Ethan slowly walked to the living room, his heart in his throat. Spencer lay curled into the corner of the sofa, naked, his legs drawn up. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. "Spencer!" Ethan cried and strode quickly to the sofa. His foot stepped on something on the floor . . . an empty vial. The syringe still rested in Spencer's half-open hand. "Oh, Man. Spencer."

Ethan stood for a few moments, combing his hands through is hair, staring down at his friend. Then he went down the hall again to the bathroom and ran a warm bath. When he came back Spencer was coming to enough to let Ethan stand him up and coax him down the hallway and into the bathroom. He didn't fight when Ethan helped him slowly into the bathtub. He smiled when Ethan wrung the water from a warm washcloth and let it run down his back. He let Ethan wash his hair, his face, under his arms. When Ethan stood him up to dry him off, Spencer leaned against him and whispered, "Thank you. Thank you." As he downed the glass of cold water Ethan offered, he smiled again and he leaned into Ethan and offered his mouth for a kiss.

By the time they had climbed into Ethan's bed, Spencer was wide awake and ready for Round Two. Ethan's anger had been satiated in the living room, but he was surprised to feel that Spencer had some left. He let Spencer take control, and explore his body as he wanted to. But Ethan felt as though he was being made love to by a ghost of his friend. There was no smile then, no warmth. Spencer avoided Ethan's eyes. His concentration on Ethan's skin, his hands, his mouth, the hair on his belly, his cock, was thorough and totally without emotion. But he stayed close, holding onto the other man's body as if in desperation. After he sucked Ethan's cock so that it was hard and trembling and on the verge, he lay his long lanky frame over Ethan and kissed him deeply. "Do it again," he crooned against Ethan's lips, his breath burning.

Ethan rolled him over and climbed on top of him. He leaned over and opened the drawer of the nightstand to find a tube of lube, and thoroughly coated his cock with it. Then he probed Spencer gently, entering him slowly this time - and then indeed he did it again, gently, slowly, feeling every inch of Spencer as he slid in and out. Funny, he thought as he moved, that he had what he wanted now – Spencer's body, Spencer Reid in his bed. But still there had been no feeling in Spencer's pretty eyes. Ethan didn't have his heart, and he never would have it. He lay down over Spencer's back as he moved in and out, and felt under him, finding his erection. He handled it firmly and reverently, until he felt his friend sigh and gasp and shudder underneath him. Ethan's tears dropped onto Spencer's neck and mixed with the sweat and the damp stands of his hair.

~~/~~

Spencer moaned and stretched his legs, and opened his eyes to see Ethan watching him. He lay still and stared back into his friend's eyes in the dim light of the room. "What are you looking at?" he whispered without smiling.

"You're beautiful." Ethan gave a half smile and dropped his eyes to where his fingers were stroking slowly up and down Reid's back.

"You're not mad at me. Anymore." Spencer stated it softly, hesitating.

Ethan couldn't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry I was so . . . rough with you. I guess this was just…Just unexpected. I didn't know what to feel."

"I know." Spencer sighed deeply then, and they lay silent for several minutes.

Then Spencer turned his face into the pillow, so that Ethan couldn't see it. "I just needed to be with someone. I just needed . . . someone. Ethan, something happened to me." He stopped speaking and lay quiet for several seconds, during which Ethan continued to stroke his back. Finally Ethan moved his body closer so that it was barely touching Spencer, the heat between their bodies warm and comforting in the bed. He draped his arm over Spencer's back and cupped his hand around his hip. He moved his lips close to Spencer's buried ear, and whispered, "Tell me."

And Spencer tried. He wanted to bring someone – just one person - into the black existence of his life. Something alive, another human heart. But he couldn't find the words. He told Ethan about having been in love, and plans to marry. He told him there was a plane crash. He told him all the essential facts of the matter, without embellishment, because he found he didn't have the energy to embellish. But what he couldn't find words for was what would have been the most valuable to get out – that he was so alone that he was terrified every single day that somehow he would eventually die inside. And that he had wanted someone to touch him, to make him hurt, make him cry, make him know that some small part of him was alive, even while Aubrey was dead. He didn't care whether it was Ethan or anyone else, man or woman. He wanted a human being's body to touch his. To devour him.

He had found that solace with Ethan. He was deeply grateful for it. After he had told all that he could find words to tell, he crawled closer to Ethan, into the shelter of his arms, and slept better than he had slept in months.

~~/~~

Reid breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that no call had come in overnight from Hotch. Morgan had tried to reach him a total of nineteen times. What the hell did he want?

The streets of New Orleans were still quiet. Businesses hadn't opened yet, save a nearby bakery, and Reid savored his croissant and coffee as he walked. He had left Ethan on good terms, embracing him a final time in the doorway. And now, he imagined that the very cells of his skin were satisfied and renewed, after the night he had passed with another's hands on him. He had been right to go to Ethan for it.

It was true that he didn't find men as arousing as he did women. He never would. Ethan knew it too. But, he supposed, a human being could have sexual relations with anyone, really. It was mind over matter in the end. A different quality of sex, perhaps, but it worked all the same. And Reid wasn't the least bit interested in the potential emotional aspect of it all. He had had that with Aubrey, and that was enough. To pretend that he could ever connect with another person the way he had with her – to feel the things that she had made him feel when they were naked in each other's arms – would be a betrayal now. He had wanted to be with Ethan, with a man, because the physical and psychological need was there, but with a man there could not be a betrayal of his love for Aubrey. Because it would never be the same.

Still, he found himself feeling a small pang of something uncomfortable when he thought about the look in Ethan's eyes in the dark as he lay beside him, and he had whispered, "You're beautiful." He knew that he couldn't return Ethan's feelings. He knew that Ethan loved him. He had known it years ago. But he couldn't change it, he told himself, and after all Ethan was a grown man and had chosen to spend the night with him. And Reid could offer him friendship of the deepest kind. He could do that. And he would.

As he waited for the street light to change across from the hotel, his phone rang. It was Hotch. "Meeting in the lobby, ten minutes." Perfect. That would give him time to change his shirt. No time to bother with Morgan's questions.

~~/~~

Reid knelt beside the body where it had been found lying in the alley, leaning down to peer into the face of the young woman. "There is bruising to her face and neck. Look at these burns around her neck, Prentiss." He was on this morning. He felt a new energy, a new drive. He felt the enjoyment of his job again, of pursuing the mystery, closing in on the unsub.

Morgan stood over Reid and Prentiss where they squatted on the ground examining the latest victim. He glared down at Reid's back. The young agent had casually shown up to work this morning as if he had been in his hotel room last night. This made Morgan furious.

When Reid stood to move across the alley with a skin sample he had just bagged, Morgan intentionally stood in his way. He met Reid's startled and questioning eyes with a hard stare.

"Excuse me, Morgan" Reid said, smiled weakly, and stepped around him.

Morgan sighed deeply and unclenched his fists. This was going to be a long day.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter Six_

Reid threw himself into the work during the day in a way that he hadn't in many weeks. He felt a new sense of purpose, the same old fire he had felt before in the course of his job. The case took them into the French Quarter – the Vieux Carre – and the exotic energy in the old city streets rubbed off on Reid. Even the task of examining the crime scenes where two new bodies had been found, didn't provide enough darkness to take away the lightness in his step. Reid analyzed, theorized, calculated as he had on any of his former best days. Even Hotch noticed with some considerable relief that Reid was pulling no punches; he was on the trail of this unsub like a bloodhound, sparks of the old boy genius springing into the mix. He joked with the team as if he were the old Reid, the person that had considered his team his closest companions and confidants - before the plane crash - the one that had shared with them his concerns and troubles, the one that had been comfortable accepting advice and help from them.

The only one he didn't joke around with today was Morgan. Since Reid had met the team that morning Morgan had been stomping around like a storm waiting to break. Reid was confused, not knowing whether the problem was with the stress of the case, or something he himself had done - whether Morgan had a beef with him or with the world in general. It was often hard to tell, when Morgan was like this, what the source of the annoyance was. And so Reid stepped carefully around Morgan as the day advanced into evening, avoiding eye contact, not daring to initiate any conversation.

When 6 pm came, Reid declined to join the team for dinner. Instead he met Ethan at the Café du Monde. There, Ethan ordered them both a café au lait and a beignet, and as was the local custom, he blew the powdered sugar onto Reid, laughing to see the surprise on Reid's face, and told him to make a wish. Reid smiled and brushed the powder off his tie.

"Don't tell me," cautioned Ethan, "If you tell me it won't come true." He reached across the table and brushed powder from Reid's cheek. Then he leaned back in his chair and watched Reid sip his coffee. No one loved good coffee like Reid.

Reid regarded his friend sitting there, sprawled into the chair as if he owned it, a masculine pose. Ethan had always exuded a masculine aura. An air of confidence, of owning a room, a chair, a piano, a crowd. Ethan had possessed some of that energy even as a very young man, and now here he was a grown man, full bearded and hard-bodied, and that wonderful energy filled a room. Reid admired it. Reid, who so often wanted to melt into the floor when entering a room.

"So what's the plan?" said Ethan suddenly.

"What?"

"The case – how long will you be here?"

Reid shrugged and brushed more sugar from his shirt. "Uh. . two, three days. I don't really know."

Ethan leaned forward, elbows on the table. "And…what does that mean for you and me?"

Reid didn't answer, but looked down at his beignet, slowly tearing a piece off and turning it around in his fingers.

"I don't mean . . . I don't mean the future Reid, don't panic, " Ethan laughed without humor. "I mean for two days."

Reid breathed out slowly. "I like seeing you again."

Ethan cleared his throat before taking another gulp of coffee. He watched Reid's face for a few moments, and then said, "You are welcome to come 'round anytime. I mean to my place. If you want to. I play until 1 a.m. usually, unless..."

"I want to stay with you tonight." Reid said suddenly as he looked up into Ethan's eyes.

"Okay, " said Ethan calmly, smiling as he took another sip. Then he reached into his pocket, fished out a key, and slid it across the table.

~~/~~

Morgan had noticed when Reid slipped into his hotel room later that evening. He waited a polite interval and then knocked on the door of Reid's room.

"Hey. Morgan." Reid said when he opened the door, his hair wet from a shower. "What's up?"

Morgan stepped into the room without invitation. Reid shrugged and smirked to himself and closed the door behind him. Morgan strode to the window and stood for a few moments, looking out, hands on his hips. Without turning he said, "You know where I spent last night?"

Reid was confused. "I guess. . .in your hotel room?"

"No Reid, in YOUR hotel room."

"Uh . . . Why?"

Morgan turned and faced him, arms folded across his chest. "You didn't come back, Kid. It got late. I was concerned." He watched as Reid buttoned a fresh shirt. "You going out? Again?"

Reid laughed lightly and turned to fold the shirt lying on the bed. "I'm a grown man, Morgan."

Morgan fought to keep his voice even, determined that calm restraint would be heard in his words, "You're a grown man with . . . you have some problems, Reid."

The long fingers paused momentarily against the fabric of the shirt before lifting it into the open bag on the bed. "My problems – to whatever you are referring specifically - aren't affecting my work. I'm fine. You don't have to worry."

"You aren't FINE. You're losing it, Man!"

"Losing what Morgan?" Reid turned to face him, the familiar defiance creeping into the dark eyes. Reid was wondering what on earth he would have to lose now. Aubrey was gone.

"Losing perspective! You're shaky, unfocussed, you're late half the time. You lie to us. Now you creep off like you don't want to be around the rest of the team . . ."

"CREEP OFF? Ha!" Reid laughed loudly. "I was out, Morgan. Big deal."

"And this evening?"

"I met a friend."

"Ethan?"

The way Morgan hissed the name made Reid pause. "Yes. Ethan. So?"

"What did you do with him all night?"

"Excuse me?"

Morgan knew he was treading on unsafe ground. That unstable precipice one stands upon just before going somewhere from whence there is no return. "You heard me." He glowered at Reid, standing his ground but unsure himself what exactly he was defending.

"Morgan what is wrong with you?" Reid's eyes were wider now, a scowl appearing across his brow.

"Did he help you score? Give you a fix? Share it with you?"

"Are you CRAZY?" Reid was yelling now.

"Why were you out with him all night?" Morgan screamed back.

Reid took several steps toward Morgan. He was shaking with anger, throughout the length of his long, slight frame. "He's an old friend Morgan! And for your information he doesn't do drugs!"

"Why are you defending him?"

"Why are you attacking him?"

"Because you were out ALL NIGHT LONG!"

Reid laughed again, a sneering laugh. "Morgan, it is really none of your business how late I'm out or whom I am with, is it?"

Morgan stepped into Reid's personal space and leaned into his face. "It's my business if it hurts the team."

"I'm NOT hurting the team!"

"You're using!" Morgan's fists were clenched at his side now, and he had lost the battle to keep fury from his eyes.

Reid didn't step back. He glared into Morgan's eyes and then he said, lowly and deliberately. "You want to hurt me, Morgan?"

Morgan gasped softly, searching Reid's eyes for a reason why he could ask such a thing. But even as he did, he felt his fists trembling and knew there was some truth in it: he was beyond angry with the young agent, and he wasn't really certain why. All he could think to do was to study the young man's face for answers. Then Morgan stopped and reached for Reid's chin. Reid ducked his head back, but then let Morgan touch his chin and lift it up slightly, positioning his face into better light. "You're bruised."

Reid turned away and stepped back, sullen, silent.

"What IS that?" Morgan yelled. "You're bruised!"

"We . . I had a little uh . .. altercation. It's nothing."

Morgan stood and stared at Reid, exasperated, for several torturous seconds. In the end he didn't answer, just put his hand on Reid's chest and shoved him roughly aside, landing him on the bed. "See you tomorrow," he mumbled as he walked out and slammed the door.

Reid sat on the bed, numb with bewilderment. He could, he supposed, somewhat understand Morgan's concern. But he wasn't a child after all, and if he chose to be away from the hotel all night when he wasn't on the clock, that was no one's business but his own. Morgan had never even met Ethan, what right did he have to say those things? Any issues Reid had did not have a thing to do with Ethan.

He rose and ran a comb through his hair, pulled on his jacket, picked up his phone and stuffed it in his pocket. He dug into the side of his bag and removed a vial of Dilaudid and a syringe and put that into the pocket of his trousers. He picked up Ethan's key from the dresser and smiled to himself as he fingered it, looking at the filigree patterns in the century-old metal object. He was still smiling when he left the room, heading down to the lobby, and out into the New Orleans night.

~~/~~

Morgan heard the click of Reid's door when he left. He thought about following him, but restrained himself. What reason would he be able to give for that? After all, he knew where Reid was going. And Morgan couldn't justify following him, not really. He couldn't prove that Ethan was the problem. Could it possibly be true that Ethan didn't do drugs? That they were simply, well, old friends? Morgan shook his head, pondering: Reid didn't have any normal friendships. He didn't even go out with the team half the time. He wouldn't even do it back when . . .when he was himself. He was such a loner. So why all the socializing with Ethan now?

But what was really bothering Morgan was why it bothered him at all. Why should he care where Reid was? If the kid didn't care about his own well-being why should Morgan be so wrapped up in it? Reid did have a point after all – he wasn't ever exactly incoherent or "stoned" in the classic meaning of the word. He was always present when he needed to be. He was indeed doing the job.

Still, the change in him had been gradual but apparent. Drastic. He was so often curt, sullen, cold. Through the years, they had watched him grow from a shy young kid into a man who was kind of heart, if awkward about showing it. Reid was a gentlemen, considerate of others, compassionate. He over-sympathized with victims until he deprived himself of sleep and food. He even had on occasion over-sympathized with unsubs. Reid had even developed an appropriate sense of humor in recent years. He knew how to laugh at himself too, and he had slowly become comfortable in his own skin. He even walked differently now (with a slight limp owing to the gunshot wound a few years back), with more grace and confidence than he had when he first came to the BAU. He moved with greater self-assurance.

Sure the little bump after Tobias Henkel had taken Reid back a bit. He had dabbled with the drugs that Henkel had forced upon him. Who could blame him after what he had gone through and so young, so without the tools in the box to combat any such nightmares. All that had to be forgiven, and faster than Morgan had supposed he would, Reid had cleaned up, pulled himself out of it, and grown from it.

But this time. . . this time was different. Reid was more arrogant. He was colder. Morgan had started to think of the Dilaudid as an entity in itself that was trying to take Spencer Reid away, replacing him with someone who slung stinging comments at people he cared about, someone who lied, who disappeared for hours on end, who didn't care about getting a haircut or tucking his shirt in properly. Now Reid was someone whose hands shook during a meeting, his bloodstream in need of that calming narcotic jolt that would never be calming enough. And what were those bruises on the side of his face? Had he fought with some guy on the street? This Reid, the one before him now, was someone that Morgan didn't know.

That was it. Morgan was terrified that the old Reid was slipping away, and he didn't know how he was going to stop it if his young friend was unwilling to offer the least bit of cooperation.

Morgan lay awake until after 3 a.m., listening for the sound of Reid's return. When late night turned to early morning and dawn began to loom, he suddenly thought that something else might be going on. He felt his blood rush cold in his veins as the realization crept over him: Reid was sleeping with Ethan. How he knew it he wasn't sure. The look in Reid's eyes, maybe, as he defended Ethan? The all night long outings? Reid had always spoken about girls, asked questions about girls, crushed on JJ, on that TV-star girl Lila. He had been with Aubrey . . my God he had put a ring on her finger!

No, surely that wasn't it. That was crazy. Reid with Ethan? That way? Morgan glanced at the clock once more. Three fifteen a.m. Then he told himself that Reid would be back in the morning when the team met - he'd see him then - and then finally he allowed his eyes to close.


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter Seven_

Reid looked at his watch as he entered Jackson Square. Here he was in New Orleans, he thought, and he had seen the interiors of three private homes and an office – totaling four bloody crime scenes. He had seen a few restaurants. And Ethan's club. Nothing really touristy, nothing terribly unusual or interesting. A shame he hadn't had the time, it was such a beautiful and historic city. He stood and looked up at the enormous, impressive façade of the Cathedral of St. Louis. He had always loved to look at old cathedrals, since his mother had taken him to England and France when he was a boy, before she was too ill to travel. He recalled the fire in her eyes when she explained how they were built, over the course of decades, sometimes centuries. And all to the glory of the Christian god. _Look at it Spencer. Look at the terrible beauty of it. This is God's house. This is where peace resides._

His mother hadn't taken Reid to church, although he knew he had been baptized at some point. Sometime during his childhood he had read the entire Bible out of curiosity, a collection of rather bland stories. Later he took a course in Biblical history and was surprised to find that much of it was reflective of historical fact, in terms of the history of the Middle East. He had been a little bit uncomfortable during the church service when JJ's son and his godson, Henry, was baptized. He had been intrigued and a bit amused at the idea – that through symbolic washing away of mankind's supposed offenses to a mythical god, a child was welcomed into the community of a religion. Fascinating. And weird. Now, as he stood and studied the ornate carvings in the front of the cathedral, it occurred to him that it was too late in the evening for any service to be going on. If it was still open, perhaps he would have time to go in quietly and look around.

As he pulled open the heavy wooden door, he felt somewhat embarrassed for himself, like an uninvited visitor, slightly out of place. Inside, the lights cast a yellowish glow. He found himself sorry to note that because it was nighttime he would not be able to appreciate the stained glass, it having no outside light to illuminate the colors. As he walked up the center aisle he looked up and marveled at the ornate painting and frescos on the ceiling. He tried to imagine the scaffolding needed to lift the artists high enough to work there. Flags hung from balconies on either side of the long aisle; Reid recognize the French flag, three different U.S. flags, from various eras in its history, other flags that Reid supposed represented the state, region, various heraldic statements. He was sorry that the gift shops were closed; he would have bought a book about the history and architecture of the place.

Few visitors were left, and the ones that were kept their voices to a low hush. Reid crossed between pews, out of the center of the church, and wandered through an area to the side. The light was dimmer, the shadows were deeper, he felt less conspicuous. Statues of various saints greeted him here and there. He stood before a side chapel, where there were several rows of tiny candles burning in a stand. He felt uncomfortable and intrusive, as he watched a couple light a candle together, their heads bent together, whispering together as they did. A woman was kneeling and praying before the small alter in the chapel. She wore a black veil pinned into her hair. Above the alter hung a statue of a man in a long gown, his arms reaching into space before him in a beckoning gesture.

The woman stood suddenly and he saw that she was elderly. She was petite, and her back curved. She moved slowly and smiled at him. He flushed, feeling that he must appear to have no real purpose for standing there. As she hobbled past him she stopped, placing a gnarled hand on his arm. The wrinkles around her eyes gave them the appearance of crinkling merrily as she looked up into his surprised face, "She is not lost, Sweet Boy," she said. "And you are not lost." She smiled to herself then, looking ahead and hobbled on away from him, leaving a baffled Reid standing staring after her, his mouth agape.

~~/~~

Ethan bounded up the stairs and turned the key in the lock to his apartment quickly, his heart rate increasing as he anticipated Spencer inside waiting for him. This would be their fifth night together since he had looked up from the piano one night to see his old friend sitting there in the club listening. The past week had brought surprises that Ethan never would have allowed himself to think of. He had long ago resolved to live with the deepest, darkest part of his heart hidden away even from himself – the void where the memory of Spencer Reid resided. And now, here was Spencer suddenly back in his life, in his apartment, in his bed. He found himself waiting for the world to explode, as if there would be some inevitable price that he would have to endure for having this week, for having Spencer just for a few days.

Inside, the lights were low and all was quiet except for a recording of his own piano performance – soft jazz. "Spence?" He stepped in and closed the door, hung up his jacket in the cloak closet opposite. "Spencer? What are you doing?" Ethan sighed when there was no answer. Because he already knew the answer.

"Baby." Spencer sat on the sofa, head back, eyes closed, oblivious. A vial on the coffee table, a syringe in his hand. Ethan stepped around the coffee table and sat beside him. He took the syringe from Spencer's hand and set it aside. He pulled the young man into his arms, letting Spencer's head slide onto his shoulder. Ethan felt his warmth through his shirt, and listened to his deep, even breathing. He stroked the side of his face, tangled his fingers through the silky hair, placed tender kisses on Spencer's forehead. He held him as close as he could hold him and stroked his arm, waiting.

They hadn't talked about this. Ethan didn't mention it and Spencer never brought it up. When Spencer had been in town before – four years ago now – Ethan had gently confronted him about the drug use, and Spencer had heard him. Now, it seemed pointless to harp on it. It wouldn't make any difference. Ethan knew that Spencer was chasing demons the only way he knew how. The few pieces that Spencer had shared of his heartbreak of the past months, as he lay in bed that first night, told Ethan that Spencer was barely coping, just trying to hang on. He hated what the drug was doing – the way it made Spencer's pretty features appear drawn and strained. The way it make his hands shake, had taken away the lightness in his walk. The way it robbed the brightness from his eyes. The thought that it would take Spencer's job from him was a thought that Ethan pushed away and refused to consider seriously, but a part of him – when he looked at his friend – feared that it was a real possibility. He hated the Dilaudid. But he loved Spencer, and Ethan knew that he would do whatever Spencer needed him to do, without judgment. He wasn't certain whether that was right or wrong. He closed his eyes and breathed in Spencer's scent, felt his breath on his neck, and hoped that the drug wouldn't take too much away from Spencer before he decided to come back to his life, to get clean again.

Spencer stirred and sighed. He started to raise his head from Ethan's shoulder, but then settled it down again and slipped his arms around Ethan's waist. "What time is it?"

Ethan laughed, "Does it matter?" and then, "I haven't been home long. It's okay."

They sat together like that for several minutes, enjoying each other's closeness and warmth. And then Ethan said, "Where do you go?"

"What?"

"When you do . . .that. Where do you go?"

"I don't know. Sometimes nowhere. I'm just . . . gone."

"From what?" Ethan's question was soft and slow, not wanting to push.

Spencer was silent for a few minutes, and then he said, so softly that even as he held him Ethan strained to hear, "From everything. There is just . . . nothing worth being here for. There hasn't been anything for months. I hate being here sometimes. I just want a break."

"What about me? You want to be gone from me?"

Spencer raised his head and looked hard at Ethan, "No, not you." Then the hazel eyes were gone, sweeping down and away, as was Spencer's trademark. Never revealing too much.

Ethan measured his words carefully, "You have to take a little more all the time, right? To keep the high? How far can you go, and still be safe?"

"I'm okay Ethan. I'm smart about it," came the answer, with a hint of defensiveness.

"Yeah, I know you are." Ethan took Spencer's face in his hand and guided it to his. He pressed his mouth to Spencer's brow, and his nose, and his lips. "I just . . I want to say this: when you go home, when you need to kick this, if you need me, if things. . .get bad. No matter how bad. I'll come, Spence. I'll come."

Spencer's answer was to devour Ethan's mouth with his.

~~/~~

Later in the night, Spencer lay still in the bed and studied Ethan's face as he slept. More masculine than his own, the beard dark and heavier, the skin a little bit rougher, the chiseled lines harder, the body bulkier and more muscular. People sometimes mistook Spencer for a gay man, or just assumed he was – his androgynous beauty providing the fodder for their ignorance. But Ethan truly couldn't relate to making love to women, and yet here he was, so much more masculine in appearance than was Spencer, even in the way he moved, the way he sat, his vocal patterns. Spencer pondered this and was suddenly grateful for it – that Ethan was safe walking on the streets, without some idiot wanting to start something because he was gay. His next thought was that he was surprised to be feeling so protective of Ethan.

He had been surprised by a lot of things in the past few days. If he were to be honest with himself (and he knew that he wasn't often honest with himself much lately) he would have to admit that he had looked up Ethan not because he wanted to see an old friend, but because he wanted sex. He was lonely, desperate for physical companionship, and he didn't want a woman. That would have been too close to what Aubrey had been for him, and that didn't feel right. He had wanted a man, and sex, and he had wanted to use Ethan. Ethan, who had been a good friend for many years, and Spencer had plotted to seduce him and use him without a second thought. Spencer winced at the thought – his moral choices had been a mystery lately even to himself.

Funny, how the person he had most wronged had turned out to be the one he most trusted now.

And now he would have to hurt Ethan again. He raised up and looked across Ethan at the clock, and lay down again with a sigh.

He reached out and touched Ethan's hair, moving it back from his forehead. He let his fingers fall on Ethan's brow, across his eyes, combed them down Ethan's face to his lips. "Ethan," he whispered. "Wake up, I have to say something. Ethan."

"Huh?" Ethan woke, startled momentarily before taking in Spencer's face and smiling. He stretched, "What time is it?" and glanced around the still-darkened room.

"Ethan, we're going to wrap the case this morning. We'll be gone by noon." Spencer spoke slowly, and then waited in the silence for Ethan to process his words.

"Okay," Ethan sighed and turned onto his back, looking away from Spencer's gaze. "Okay. Of course, you couldn't be here forever," he attempted to punctuate his words with a laugh and choked on it.

"I . . this turned out to be . .different than I thought . . ," Spencer began.

Ethan interrupted him, "You don't need to make a speech, Spence. I knew you have to leave here eventually."

Spencer raised himself up and put a hand on Ethan's chest. "I need to say . . . I always feel like I should be apologizing to you, " he laughed softly. "And maybe I should. Ethan, I still don't feel about men the way you do. I really don't. But. . .if I did . . "

Ethan stopped his words by pulling him to his lips and kissing him deeply. "Don't, Spencer. I know that."

After a bit, Spencer leaned back and said quietly, "I'm never going to feel the way you want me to. It's not fair to you."

"I'm not a kid, Spencer. I chose it. I chose it the first night you were here. I'm not sorry. And I'm not sorry about the way I feel either."

Spencer moved down Ethan's body, caressing it then with something that came from deeper within him than it had before. He kissed the strong lines of his hips and abdomen with reverence. He teased the inside of Ethan's thighs with his teeth, and his balls with his tongue. All the while he let thoughts fill his head of the moments in the past days when Ethan had been generous, so generous. He had held Spencer, whispered to him, bathed him, kissed him, coaxed his body to orgasm, listened to his troubles, and all of it without a moment's judgment. Spencer had left the apartment these past mornings feeling as if every inch of him was something beloved to another human being. Ethan had watched him use the Dilaudid without hardly a word. He'd made no demands, asked no real questions that Reid wasn't ready to answer. There had been no pressure. There had been much tenderness. These thoughts filled Spencer's head as he closed his mouth around Ethan's cock, and heard his friend moan loudly. He was determined that tonight, he would do all the giving. He would say goodbye in the way that he knew meant the most to Ethan, by loving his body the best he could. He would let Ethan use him this time, as he wished.


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter Eight_

Morgan had watched Reid come back from the lavatory for the fifth time in an hour. The young agent sat down again as if he were ninety years old, slowly and gingerly lowering himself into the seat. His face was even a lighter shade of pale than it usually was, his eyes wary, his expression strained. He rested his hands in his lap and leaned over the table to read, or pretend to read so that he wouldn't have to chat with anyone. A glass of ginger ale stood beside the book. Morgan supposed that Reid had placed his hands in his lap so that no one would see them shaking, the same reason that he so often put them in his pockets.

At one point in the flight Reid had gotten up and headed back to the small kitchen area. JJ had promptly followed. Morgan watched Reid smile at her greeting, as he leaned into the small refrigerator and took out another ginger ale. Then his expression changed as she spoke lowly to him; his countenance hardened, the defiance came into his large expressive eyes. Morgan was surprised to see him brush past JJ then with such carelessness that she lost her balance and had to grab onto the countertop for support. Morgan was incredulous. The Reid he knew would never have behaved thus to any woman, much less a good friend and the mother of his godson. Morgan averted his eyes as Reid walked down the aisle toward him and dropped into his seat again. It suddenly occurred to Morgan that they were all doing a lot of that these days – averting their eyes when Reid started behaving in a hostile manner, or when his hands shook, his cheek paled, his eyes glazed. And this made Morgan very angry.

He wasn't angry only at their lack of backbone, but at the thought that their failing to confront it could be Reid's demise. How could they? How could he? Reid had been just a boy when he first came to them. They had thrown him into a world that few adults would have been able to cope with, and asked him to shine, perform, impress the higher ups. And he had done it. He had also been through Hell and back more than a few times in the course of the work. Once, Morgan had overheard Hotch express a concern that they had never taught Reid to deal with the emotions that inevitably came with the job – and that was what, five years ago now? What had they done for him since then? They had left him to learn the ropes alone, even when he had turned to the drug before, when it had almost cost him his job. And here they were again, here Reid was again, right back where he was four years ago. Morgan cringed to think that maybe they were all a little bit to blame.

But what to do now? How to get the kid to turn around, to even listen? How far could this go before something was going to have to give? Sure, he was functioning on the job – in New Orleans, Morgan had even seen shades of the former Reid's excellence. But how long could that last if the drug use escalated?

~~/~~

Reid stood in the middle of the sidewalk and looked up into the rain. He closed his eyes and felt the coolness of the rivulets run down into his hair, down his face, and dripping off his chin. He had made it – gotten through the jet trip and the team was none the wiser. It hadn't been easy.

He had wanted shoot up this morning in preparation for the trip, but instead he had spent every minute with Ethan that he could, thinking that he could have an hour at the hotel to pretend he was busy packing. But in the end there had been no time. So he had relied on the Ibuprofen and Imodium and Pepto Bismol in his bag to see him through. It had been torture – over two hours to stare at an open magazine, willing his eyes to focus, his stomach to stop churning, his hands to stop shaking. But he had done it.

He was grateful that Hotch had dismissed the team after lunch, telling everyone to go home and get some needed rest after the stress of the case in New Orleans; it would be soon enough that the next case would come – perhaps even later today. He had declined the offer of a ride home from Morgan and had taken a cab as far as his own neighborhood, not feeling prepared yet to return to the deafening quiet of his apartment. Now, he walked in the rain, and looked for a quiet doorway, a public restroom, an alley where there would be no traffic, anywhere with a dark cubbyhole where he could dig a friendly dose out of the messenger bag and give himself some relief. After a five minute walk he was completely drenched, and ducked into a tavern. It was still quiet inside – the lunch crowd gone, the late afternoon crowd not yet arrived. Reid nodded to the bartender and headed to the back, in search of the restroom.

~~/~~

"Wake up Kid!"

"You want me to call an ambulance?"

"He's stoned, not sick. Fucking junkie. Help me get him up."

"What are you going to do?"

"Throw him outta here! I don't want this trash in my bar!"

Ice cold water hits his face. "Get him up!"

Reid finds himself struggling to find his feet as he is dragged out through the bathroom door and through the bar. His vision begins to focus then, and he notices dozens of pairs of curious eyes on him. He sees concern in a few, fear in some, disgust in others. The man supporting him is big, solid, burly, and smells of sweat. He is growling something, "….fucking junkies in my bar. Take your garbage outside!"

And with the last word he hurls Reid through the front door and painfully onto the sidewalk. It knocks the wind from his lungs, and he grits his teeth against the pain of the sidewalk grinding against his skin through his trousers. He lays there unmoving as his body adjusts to the blow of pain and waits for it to subside, and he tentatively begins to breathe again. He watches as people step around him, looking back over their shoulders with the same looks on their faces as those in the bar had. Some of them whisper to companions as they stare. Then the thought occurs to him that he doesn't belong here, with the human race – that he is defective. The thought stabs him deeply; he hasn't had that thought since before New Orleans. Once upon a time he used to have that thought fairly often, so often that it became an integral part of him. And then Aubrey had touched him, and taken him into her life, and had canceled out the thought. Whether or not he belonged or ever had or ever would didn't really matter with Aubrey, because when she looked at him he saw in her eyes – those beautiful gray eyes – acceptance, and something else . . .a sort of respect.

He hadn't felt that sense of separation from the whole human race again until a few weeks before New Orleans. He had lain on the sofa that day, trying to satisfy his own sexual frustration, and the feeling that he was alien to all other human experience had washed over him, making him go soft, taking his sense of self-worth in its wake. He feels his face redden even now as he recalls the moment that he lost his erection. Or is that the drug making his face flush? The storm has broken and the sun peeks through an opening in the remaining clouds. He shifts and rises onto an elbow, putting his hand over his eyes to shade them from the brightness of the light. In New Orleans he had felt better – since he found Ethan. Or Ethan found him. Now the ripping loneliness had returned.

"Come on Son, get up." Reid looks up and sees a smartly-dressed man, in a dark overcoat and dark hat. "Take my hand," he smiles.

Reid shakes off the last of the pain from his tumble and takes the offered hand. A strong arm pulls him to his feet. "Thank you."

"Where are you headed?"

"Excuse me?" Reid is rubbing his head where it seems to be developing a bump.

"You aren't planning on camping out here in front of the bar – they just threw you out after all." The stranger laughs.

Reid regards him then with a little bit of suspicion. "No. I mean, no I wasn't. I'm headed home."

"I'll walk with you." Reid sees that the face of his companion holds none of the messages that those of the other passers-by did. It is soft, relaxed, almost warm. The man is clean-shaven, impeccably groomed. His long overcoat is unbuttoned and shows black trousers and shirt, and now Reid notices the white strip inside the collar of the black shirt. A priest.

"No, really, I'm fine. I don't. . ." Reid hesitates, not wanting to offend, but wanting to return to the safety of solitude, "I don't need any help. I'm fine now."

The priest cocks his head and smiles out of one side of his mouth. "I know." He puts out his hand in a lead-the-way gesture, and Reid, lacking the social finesse to get rid of him, begins to walk, allowing the stranger to fall into step beside him.

"Sun's coming out, it will dry you now. Hope you aren't too cold."

"No," Reid lies.

"Quite an afternoon you're having, huh?

"Beg your pardon?"

"Well, you obviously got caught in the rain, then thrown out of the bar. What is next on your agenda?" He laughs again, a laugh from the bottom of the belly that rumbles up his chest and out of his throat in a way that is quite pleasing to Reid's ears. He begins to relax. As often happens, he is at a loss to add to the conversation, and falls into the familiar pattern of flushing, throat-clearing, stammering.

"Yes, the sun . . . the sun is, uh, making me warmer."

The stranger chats about the weather, points out shop-fronts along the way and talks about the owners, tips his hat to elderly ladies and young women.

"I've been thrown out of a few bars in my time, " says the priest suddenly, and Reid dares to glance into his face.

"Really? You?"

"Only I did it better than you did. I usually got a few punches in on the way out the door." The rumbling laugh again, punctuating the statement.

Reid watches himself step over the seams in the sidewalk, listening, grateful that his companion is chatty and Reid doesn't have to think too hard to contribute. As he walks he has the odd feeling that the black overcoat is spreading from the man to also drape itself over Reid's shoulders, strangely protecting and comforting him. He wants to listen to the deep, warm voice for hours, as if it carries a certain familiarity, something he wants to remember but can't quite place. He measures his steps so that their legs parallel each other's movements as they walk; he wants the walk to continue indefinitely.

"I'll leave you here."

Reid looks up and sees that they are now across the street from his apartment building. The priest extends his hand.

"Now you go straight home," he says and winks.

"Uh, Father. . ." and Reid is hoping that this is the appropriate way to address such a person,"where do you . . . where are you . . . "

"St. Michael's, Eighth and Parish, " as he clasps Reid's hand between both of his. He takes a step closer to the young man, and when he looks into Reid's eyes, the priest's dark eyes remind him of Ethan's – searching, penetrating, confident in a way that Reid's will never be. "Son, you are not alone. You're going to find the way. Try not to get yourself into too much trouble as you journey." And he is gone, walking away down the street without a backward glance.

It is only after Reid has let himself into the apartment, put down his bag and turned to lock the door again, that it occurs to him that when he and the stranger had stood before the bar together he had never indicated the direction in which they should walk, nor had he indicated when they had arrived.

He catches sight of himself in the hall mirror. He stops, curious to see what the priest saw. His hair is hanging into his eyes, and after the rain and the grime of the restroom floor, it looks rather dirty. He brushes it back and sees that the side of his temple is scraped and bruised. He has dried blood on his chin. He begins to contemplate how hollowed his cheeks have become but stops himself, shaking his head to banish the thought, and heads to the bathroom, shedding his now-grimy clothing as he goes.


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter Nine_

When Morgan heard them he knew they assumed they were alone in the building. Morgan had sensed all day long that something was up – Reid had seemed to want to speak privately to J.J., maneuvering himself in several vain attempts to have a moment alone with her. J.J. had kept to herself all day, no smile, all business, and she had seemed to avoid being alone with Reid. Everyone had stayed late to wrap up the paperwork on the latest case. Now, late at the end of the day, Morgan had been in the parking garage when he reconsidered taking some files home with him and had returned to hear the argument coming from J.J.'s office. As he stepped into the bullpen he looked up and saw Reid and J.J. through the open glass. They were both red-faced, pulling no punches.

"Why are you doing this? I would never hurt him!" Reid's voice was uncomfortably high, the way it sounded when he got stressed.

"I know you wouldn't . . . intentionally. I am saying that right now I don't trust you around him."

"And you trust a stranger?"

"She isn't a stranger, Spence, she is Hotch's sister-in-law."

"She doesn't even know Henry."

"I'm not going to justify this to you! I'm his mother! And I'm not going to ask Will to cancel his trip, so this is what is going to happen."

"There is another option!"

"No, Spence, there isn't. I'm sorry. You need to . . . get yourself together before you can take him again for a weekend."

"I'm fine and you know it! Why are you really doing this? Are you SORRY you made me his godfather? Is Will?"

"Of course not! Don't put words in my mouth."

Morgan watched the altercation, and winced to see the look on Reid's face, the fine features twisted into hurt and disbelief. He slid the desk drawer closed quietly and started to leave, but then hesitated. This wasn't going to end well, and someone was going to need him when it did.

"I thought we were friends!" yelled Reid.

"We are. But you aren't yourself right now."

"What does THAT mean?"

"You know what I mean."

"If we were friends you wouldn't do this to me, J.J." Reid's voice cracked.

They were silent for a few moments, while two old friends carefully considered the direction in which the conversation was heading.

"I'm not doing this TO you Spence. It's about Henry and his well-being."

"I LOVE Henry!"

"I know you do…"

"Why did you invite me to be a part of this life, if you were just going to take it away?" Reid was crying openly now.

Morgan felt like an intruder. He fidgeted with pens in a jar on Prentiss' desk, carefully averting his eyes from the upstairs office, silently willing the argument to come to a close before either party did too much damage.

"I don't want to take anything away, Spence! Henry loves you too. I just want you to get better."

"I'm fine! Why does everyone keep saying I'm not! I'm here every day, I'm working, I'm fine!"

"You are NOT fine Spencer!" J.J. was walking swiftly across her office and out of the doorway, coat slung over one arm, briefcase in the other hand. "I'm not going to argue with you anymore today! I'm going home to my family."

She stomped down the stairs and glanced at Morgan as she passed, her face crimson and her brows knit together, without so much as a goodbye. Morgan watched her walk out, and then looked up, waiting for Reid to come down the stairs. He didn't. Morgan waited. Five minutes, ten minutes. Too long. Morgan jogged up the steps.

"Hey Reid?" He slowly stepped around the doorframe into J.J.'s office. Reid sat slumped in a chair against the wall, staring ahead. His eyes were damp, red and swollen, but he was silent. "Spencer? You okay?"

Morgan knelt in front of the young man. "You okay Pretty Boy? You want a ride home?"

"No."

Morgan rubbed his hands together, thinking deliberately, choosing his words. "Look, she'll cool down. She just wants to protect her boy, that's all . . . "

Reid looked at him then, squarely. "From what? From ME?"

"Reid, you can't blame her . . . "

"Have YOU been telling her things about me? I told you I was fine! "

Morgan stood, paced across the room. "I don't HAVE to tell her, Man! It's obvious!"

"What's obvious?"

"That you are out of control. You look like shit. You're even skinnier than you usually are. You come in late, your hands shake, you snap at everyone, your eyes have a far away look. . . "

"A _far away look_?" Reid scoffed, laughing loudly. "You have got to be kidding. Morgan, why are you doing this to me? Why did you tell J.J. these lies about me?" Reid's eyes shone, rimming red. He was on his feet now.

"I didn't tell her anything! She figured it out on her own, like we all have, Reid!"

"Figured out WHAT, Morgan? Why don't you say it?"

Morgan stepped close to Reid, "That you are shooting up, and it's taking over your life."

"That's ridiculous!"

"You need some help Kid."

"I need my so called _friends_ to back off and stop talking about me behind my back!"

Morgan switched gears, "How much you gonna lose, Reid? Before you get serious?"

Reid stood and stared at Morgan, his eyes glistening.

Morgan leaned in closer, "You gonna lose your friendships? Henry? This job? I mean, I don't know who you are anymore, Man. You are angry, you're paranoid . . . "

"Paranoid?"

"Yeah, paranoid. Not a one of us doesn't care about you, Reid. We want to help. You have to let us in."

"I don't need your HELP, Morgan."

Morgan was getting weary. It was like talking to a wall, and hearing your own voice bounce back, inconsequential noise. He took a step back. "Yeah, well, you don't need anyone. Fine. You let me know when you want to get your shit together, Reid. Until then, I won't bother with you. I'm over it, Man." He turned to walk away.

Suddenly Reid was on him, on his back, one arm around his neck, a fist pounding. Morgan was flabbergasted. Reid was not built for fighting and this situation was seriously designed to give him the raw end of that deal. Besides the fact that it was uncalled for. Morgan instinctively and easily flipped the lanky young agent onto his back and straddled him. He pinned his arms. "Calm DOWN." He growled into Reid's tear-steaked face.

Reid glared back, breathing heavily. "Get OFF!"

"Calm DOWN. I don't know who you are, Spencer. Who IS this?" but Morgan didn't expect a reply. After a few minutes he felt Reid's arms relax, and watched him roll his head to the side, looking away, resigned. Morgan stood up and looked down at him for a few moments, trying to think of some wise parting statement, but was too angry to think of one. He suddenly felt very foolish. He cared deeply for Spencer Reid. He loved him like a brother. After all they had been through together. And now here he was, trying to talk Reid into giving a rip about helping himself. What does one say to a person who doesn't care about himself? Who won't lift a finger to save his own life? What do you do? Morgan's heart fell as he realized he didn't have an answer. So he just sighed and walked out.

~~/~~

By the time he got to J.J.'s some of Morgan's resolve was coming back. He had been beaten down in his life by tougher, harder things than some scrawny little nerd genius from Las Vegas. Reid wasn't going to win this one, if he could help it.

Will Montagne's friendly, handsome face greeted him at the door. "Hey Morgan!" came the southern drawl. He put his hand on Morgan's back as he moved aside to let him through the threshold. "I'm glad you're here. J.J.'s pretty upset."

In the kitchen, J.J. was spooning something soft, mushy and orange into Henry's mouth. He slapped the tray of his high chair with open hands and cooed, delighted with the racket he was making. She turned round blue eyes still full of emotion on Morgan when he appeared, and she stopped, spoon poised in the air. Morgan walked to her and folded her into his big arms. She finally pulled away after a few minutes, "How is he?"

"I don't know. I left him on the floor."

"What?"

"He uh, he jumped me. I put him on the floor. He was fine when I left, he was just feeling sorry for himself."

"Morgan."

Will motioned for Morgan to sit at the table, and took a seat beside him. "J.J. says they had quite a row."

"Yeah," Morgan laughed and glanced at J.J., "they did."

J.J. put a beer in front of Morgan, and sat down. She rested her forehead in her hands. "I just don't know what to do for him anymore. I can't talk to him about it, he just gets defensive."

"Yeah, I tried that route too, " sighed Morgan. "He's an addict. Until he wants help, there is nothing we CAN do."

Will rubbed J.J.'s back. "It's hard to see someone you love self-destruct."

"He loves you guys. He loves Henry."

J.J. waved a hand in frustration. "I know that. But I can't have him around Henry right now. I don't trust his judgment. I don't trust him not to be high when he has Henry there alone. I mean, do you think he is doing this every day now?"

"I'm sure he might be."

"Well," said Will, "it might be a moot point anyway now. We're probably not leavin' this weekend." He put an arm around J.J.

"What's up?" asked Morgan.

"I have a little problem. You heard about those two escaped convicts from Tennessee on the news?"

"They caught them yet?"

"Nah. One of 'em's mine. Man I put away five months ago. He's still hot under the collar I'll bet." Will smiled. "I gotta be around until we put him back behind bars. Might have to go to Tennessee tomorrow." He squeezed J.J.'s shoulder, "J.J. was lookin' forward to having a little trip, just us. Sorry, Darlin'."

Morgan smiled softly at J.J. "Been a tough day, huh?"

"Yeah," she returned the smile, somewhat sadly. "Glad you stopped by."

~~/~~

Morgan stopped by Reid's place before going home. It was late, but something was gnawing at him, after having last seen Reid lying quiet and unspeaking on the floor of J.J.'s office. He didn't like the way he left it. He wanted to say a word. Something. Something kinder than what he had. He would just make sure Reid was home and heading to bed. If he was pissed to see Morgan at his door, so be it. Morgan was going to hound him, question him, second-guess him, watch over him, until they found a way to get a handle on this thing.

After Reid didn't answer the buzz for the third time, Morgan buzzed the super. When she came to the door, he flashed his badge. "I'm concerned about one of your renters, Spencer Reid. I need to check on his welfare." She was reticent, asking as they waited for the elevator if something was wrong with Dr. Reid. Morgan didn't want to leave her with any suspicions about the quality of Reid as a resident. He downplayed the situation, saying that Reid had been feeling under the weather at work that day, and Morgan had promised to check with him on the way home. Once she had unlocked Reid's door, Morgan turned and thanked her, dismissing her, "I'm sure he is trying to sleep. I'll just check on him and be on my way. Thanks for your help."

She hesitated, glancing into the dark interior of the apartment, and looking Morgan up and down. "All right. Well, you let me know if there is any problem."

"Thank you Ma'am. I will. Thanks again for your help."

Once inside Morgan closed the door behind him and flipped on the lightswitch. "Reid? You up?" As he scanned the living room, he was surprised to see it in disarray. If Reid was anything, he wasn't a slob. "Reid? It's Morgan!" He had always seemed almost overly-neat, as if organization was defining the stability of the world beyond his immediate domain. He stepped to the kitchen. Dishes in the sink, countertops cluttered. He looked into the refrigerator. Soda. Cheese. Old doughnuts. Not much else.

He walked down the hallway slowly, calling ahead, "Reid? You in bed? It's Morgan!" He leaned around the corner cautiously, peering into the bedroom. Odd that no lamp was on. He had always teased Reid about being afraid of the dark. Morgan leaned to switch on the light in the hallway. "Reid?" The bedroom was also a mess, clothes on the chair, on the floor, shirt hanging on the doorknob. The bed was unmade, and there was no body in it.

Morgan felt his pulse quicken. "REID!" He searched the bathroom, the spare room. Where the hell was he at 11:15 p.m.?

His ringtone blared out then, startling him. Not bothering to look at the source of the call, he flipped open the phone and barked, "REID?"

"Uh, is this Derek Morgan?"

"Yes."

"I have your friend here. Spencer. He's, uh. He isn't doing too well."

~~/~~


	10. Chapter 10

_**This chapter is dedicated to criminalXXXmindsXXXfreak, whose wonderful story "Fractured Hearts and Lullabies" inspired it. Thanks Sweetie for being my muse...**  
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_Chapter Ten_

It was past midnight when Morgan knocked on the motel door. A middle-aged man answered, "Agent Morgan?"

"Where is he?"

The man stepped aside, and gestured toward the bathroom. Morgan instinctively put his hand on his gun, and walked through the room. The bed was rumpled, pillows thrown to the floor. The TV blared a late-night news update: two convicts escaped from Tennessee, believed headed east. A bottle of Scotch half-empty on the desk, two glasses.

"I found your card in his wallet, I didn't know who to call . . . "

"Reid?" The light in the bathroom blared down on the figure huddled between the toilet and the tub. He was nude. His tousled hair covered his face, his arms wrapped tightly around his drawn up legs. His head was resting on his knees. He was completely still. The empty vial was on the floor, the syringe sat on the closed toilet seat. "Spencer?"

"What did you do?" Morgan heard himself yell, as he pulled Reid's head up to look in his face. The eyes were half-closed, non-focusing. Reid was breathing through his mouth. Morgan heard the breaths come fast and shallow. He pried open Reid's mouth and saw that his tongue was gray. _Oh God_. "REID!"

Morgan sensed the man standing behind him, watching. "How long has he been like this?" he demanded.

"I don't know. . . "

"HOW LONG!" shouted Morgan.

"Uh, forty-five minutes, maybe. He shut himself in here. I didn't know he was doing drugs."

"And you didn't call 911." It wasn't a question, but a statement that Morgan spat with disgust.

Then Morgan realized that calling for help would mean Reid would lose his job. It would be on record. He felt for a pulse – fast, irregular. He could try one thing before making that call himself. He reached into the tub and turned the faucet full on cold. He lifted Reid's limp body and dragged him into the tub, then peeled off his own shirt and turned on the shower. "Come on Baby Boy. Reid!"

After fifteen agonizing seconds, Reid gasped softly and stirred, turning his head away from the cold blast of the water. Morgan sat watching him, waiting, although he wasn't sure what for. After five minutes he took Reid's jaw in his big hand, "Open your mouth Reid," and tipped the chin upward. The tongue was pink. Reid, screwing up his features, wrenched his chin out of the hand that held it. "Fuck you," he muttered.

"Uh, I'm going to take off now, looks like he's okay," said the man, still gawking from the doorway. Morgan was on his feet in a flash, throwing him out of the bathroom and pinning him against the adjacent wall.

"Why was he here?"

"What?"

"You know him HOW?"

"I don't! I uh . . . I picked him up. I didn't know he was a fucking Fed!"

"In a bar?"

"On the street."

"WHAT?" Then he hissed into the man's face, "You aren't too bright are you?"

The man trembled as Morgan held him to the wall, while Morgan let the words sink in. "What did you do to him? Did you use protection?" Morgan was screaming into his face now.

"Yes! We did! Please, I didn't hurt him!"

"Was there money exchanged here?"

"Uh . . . not yet." The man couldn't meet Morgan's piercing glare. "Look, I didn't have to call you," he whined, "I could have just left him here. . ."

Morgan threw him into out into the room, and the man tripped against the corner of a bed and fell, catching himself and getting to his feet, moving fast. He grabbed his keys and wallet off the desk as he made his way frantically toward the door. Morgan threw his shirt at him. "Go home to your wife! I should take you in, Asshole!"

The man turned at the door, panting with fear and exertion, clutching his shirt to his chest. "For what?" The safe distance now allowed him to use a cocky tone, "I didn't pay him yet, you can't prove I would have. And no one made him get in my car! It was his idea!"

Morgan started toward him, and the man fumbled with the door handle, crazy with fright, and stumbled out into the night. Morgan stood for a moment, staring after him at the half-open door. He was numb with what he had just heard. Reid, selling himself? WHY for God's sake? Morgan looked around, the nightstands, the floor, and found two empty condom wrappers. He glanced into a wastebasket and saw the used rubbers. He breathed out, relieved.

He ran back to the bathroom. Leaning into the tub he turned off the water. Reid was shivering now, but awake. He hadn't bothered to remove himself from the stream of cold water pounding down upon him. His forehead lay against the tile, his eyes staring. But his breathing was deep and even now.

"Reid," Morgan whispered, touching his shoulder tentatively. Unlike the usual Reid, he didn't jump at the touch; he didn't seem to register it. The man who had always shied away from touch, even reluctant to shake hands with a stranger, had allowed a stranger to . . . Morgan shook the thought from his head. He grabbed a handful of towels and covered Reid. Then he went in search of his clothes.

~~/~~

Back at Reid's apartment, Morgan looked at Reid curled into the corner of his sofa, clutching a blanket. Reid hadn't spoken, not when Morgan dried his body, not when he helped him step into his boxers and trousers, not when he buttoned his shirt. He hadn't fought either. Now he merely cooperated, drank the water Morgan offered, took the blanket when Morgan had brought it, and never met Morgan's eyes. It was as if there was nothing left in him to fight with. Morgan's heart was in his throat throughout, and now he found himself also speechless. He felt a slow-growing burn behind his eyes that he had been fighting since he had loaded Reid into his car.

Now he sat on the coffee table and covered Reid's hand with is own. "You scared me, Man," he said. Reid didn't flinch. He didn't ask questions, already understanding that Reid was incapable of answering them. After several minutes passed, he walked to the chair opposite where Reid had tossed his jacket as they came in. Without caring that Reid might be watching, he dug his cell phone out of a pocket. He walked into the spare room and closed the door.

He flipped open the phone and with shaking fingers he punched in "E. T. H. . ." The name "Ethan Hunter" came up. Morgan breathed in deeply, steeling himself, and he pressed SEND.

~~/~~

Morgan had helped Reid into his bed at some point during the night. He was glad that it was early Saturday, and he prayed that they wouldn't be called in. He didn't know what he was going to say to Hotch. Reid was breathing evenly, eyes closed, the minute he lay his head on the pillow. Morgan sat on the edge of the bed and gingerly placed his hand on Reid's back. "Don't do this to me again."

On the way out of the bedroom he stopped in Reid's bathroom to wash his face, wanting a splash of cool water to rinse away the stress of the day. He nearly stepped on the vials as he flipped on the light. Dozens of them, scattered over the rug, having been dumped from a shoebox. A box of syringes sat on the floor beside them. Morgan let his legs bend, and his back slide down the wall, and sat on the floor. His eyes flitted over the vials – so many little bottles, all full, so many potential highs. Spencer's hoard. Morgan thought about dumping them, outside, far away, where Reid couldn't find them. But he knew that quitting fast now could kill him. Morgan put his hand over his eyes and cried.

~~/~~

Morgan slept fitfully on the sofa. He kept looking for the clock to say 7:00 a.m., thinking that if he waiting that long he would be able to find a grocery store open and get Reid some decent food in his refrigerator. At 7:04 he rose and grabbed his jacket.

Four hours later he stood before the kitchen counter, stirring eggs with a fork. Even while it was expected, the knock on the door startled him enough that he dropped the fork, flipping it onto the floor. "Damn." He toweled his hands dry as he crossed the hall to the door.

Ethan stood leaning against the door frame. He didn't say a word when Morgan opened the door, but smiled slowly and just as slowly stood straight. He was not what Morgan imagined. He was as tall as Reid, lean but well-muscled. He was dark, a full beard covering the lower part of his face. Smooth skin, full lips, large deep eyes. He was nearly as pretty as Reid, Morgan thought wryly. Other than that, he looked too rugged to be a pianist. He put out his hand, "Derrick?"

But Ethan moved like he was all man. He swaggered as if he had been a college athlete. He strode into the living room and collapsed onto the chair on top of Reid's jacket, legs sprawled, arms resting on the arms of the chair as if he sat in it every day of his life. "Long flight," he said to Morgan, as if Morgan would automatically empathize.

Morgan cleared his throat. "Uh. . .thanks for coming. I'm making breakfast. You eat?"

"Sure, I could use something." Ethan looked around then. "You were here all night?"

"I didn't want to leave him." Morgan said, and headed into the kitchen. He made some large omelets with mushrooms, cheese and onions, and poured orange juice. The smell of coffee brewing lightened his mood a bit. He glanced at Ethan from time to time, still sitting in the chair, his head back, resting. He hadn't asked about Reid, noted Morgan.

"Food's on," announced Morgan, and set two plates on the table. He put Reid's omelet in the warmed oven to keep. Ethan shed his jacket on top of Reid's, and shuffled casually into the kitchen.

"Thanks for this," he said, and sat down. He picked up his fork, took a mouthful, chewed it slowly and then asked, "Why did you call me?"

"You're his . . . friend. I don't know how to reach him. He's in trouble, Man. I thought you'd have some ideas."

"And you couldn't ask me for ideas over the phone?"

Morgan felt uneasy, perturbed that Ethan would imply that it was a chore to come to Reid's assistance. "He needs a friend here."

"You aren't his friend? He tells me you are."

Morgan looked up, surprised. Of course, he would think that Reid would consider him a friend, but he was somehow surprised that Reid had spoken of him in those terms to Ethan. Morgan put down his fork and leaned into the table."Look, I need help here. He won't talk, won't listen. He fights. I picked him up at a hotel room last night, where he had taken a john."

"A what?" Ethan stopped eating.

"You heard me. He picked up a . . .guy somewhere. Then he shot up in the room, and the scared the shit out of the jerk."

"How do you know this was. . . uh," Ethan chuckled, "a paid arrangement?"

"The guy told me."

Ethan's smile faded. He looked back down to work on his eggs.

"He was unconscious when I got there. His color was gray. He was fading. I threw him under the shower. I would have called an ambulance in another five."

"What did he have to say about it?"

"Not a word."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, not a word."

Ethan finished his omelet and sat back, sipping his coffee. Morgan was growing impatient with the laissez-faire demeanor. He'd surely made a mistake to call Ethan. He'd done it impetuously, he should have known his first instincts were right, that this "old friend" didn't have Reid's best interests at heart.

"What happened yesterday?" Ethan asked suddenly.

"What?"

"What happened before he ended up on the street soliciting?"

Morgan hesitated to give away too much, suspicious now of Ethan's motives. But this was the only option he had, to find a way to Reid's mind and a clue how this self-destructive spree had begun. And perhaps a way to help him end it.

"He had an argument, with a co-worker." Morgan didn't mention that it was the first of two arguments, the second being with Morgan himself.

"About what?"

"About his godson. About . . being allowed access to his godson."

'What do you mean?" Ethan trained the dark eyes on Morgan's.

"J.J. felt that in Reid's current condition he isn't . . . he shouldn't be taking care of Henry. Reid flipped."

Ethan cleared his throat, and looked at Morgan for a long minute, and then he set his cup down abruptly. He stood and said, "Excuse me," and disappeared down the hallway.

Morgan gave it five minutes before moving to stand at the end of the hallway, listening. He heard nothing. He slowly crept down toward Reid's open door, and looked in. Ethan sat on the bed, his arms wrapped around Reid as if he were a long lost child, holding him tightly to his chest, rocking him. Ethan's lips murmured into his ear, soothing. And much to Morgan's amazement, tears rolled down the man's face into his beard.


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter Eleven_

"If Spencer wants to quit, I'm going to need you. I'm going to need some help." Ethan stated flatly as he dried the last of the glasses. He moved to put them up into the cupboard, stepping carefully around Morgan. They had been stepping carefully around one another for the twenty-four-odd hours that Ethan had been there. Morgan was struggling to wrap his mind around the relationship between Reid and Ethan. Old friends, Reid had said once. Of course. But something made Morgan uncomfortable, something he couldn't put his finger on.

Morgan asked cautiously, "Do you know what you are doing? Do we need to call someone? A nurse?"

"You don't trust me? I've seen my share of friends through this, " Ethan smiled the slow smile, "I'm a musician in New Orleans, remember?" He gathered the remaining pieces of silverware and dried them off carefully, and dropped them into a drawer. "And…I was with Spencer last time."

"What do you mean?"

"Last time he needed to get clean. I was there for him."

"I . . . didn't know that." Morgan's head was working to digest all the new information about a Spencer Reid that he thought he knew well.

Ethan hung the towel over the handle of the stove, and leaned back against the counter, crossing his legs. "Derrick, is there anything you want to say?"

"What?"

"You seem to want to ask me something."

Morgan leaned into the refrigerator to put away the milk and eggs, avoiding eye contact, "I don't want to ask you anything. I've just . . . never seen someone detox before. I think we ought to make sure we know what we're doing so that he's . . . safe."

"He's safe." Ethan didn't move from his position, his eyes boring a hole into Morgan's back. "And we aren't going to do anything he isn't ready for. Why did you call me?"

"I told you. You're his friend. I thought you might know how to handle him."

"You seem nervous now that I'm here."

That was it. Morgan turned to face the man, "I'm not nervous, Man. I'm glad you're here. I just want to know that what you . . . we are doing what is best thing for him."

Ethan looked at the floor, nodding, "I can appreciate that." Then he reached up into the cupboard and took out a bottle, "You want a drink?"

"No, thanks. I have a beer in the fridge here. . . "

Ethan laughed, "We all have our poisons, huh?"

Morgan had watched as Ethan fed Reid. He had watched the evening before as Ethan got him out of the bed, slowly removed his clothing, and walked him into the bathroom, ran a tub of water and bathed him. Morgan had stood in the doorway, watching Ethan pass the washcloth gently over Spencer's skin, speaking low to him. Reid's eyes, glazed over and lifeless, stared into space. He never answered Ethan, but only nodded intermittently in response. He simply let himself be repositioned and manipulated, the will gone from him. Morgan could hardly watch it. He marveled that Ethan could be so close to it without betraying the least bit of stress. Wasn't he as alarmed by Reid's lack of emotional response to anything? Morgan started to argue when Ethan fetched one of the vials from the bathroom floor and loaded a syringe. "Are you crazy?"

"We can't do this unless he wants to do it," Ethan said calmly, flicking a finger against the barrel of the syringe to dislodge an air bubble, "And we can't do it cold turkey. We need to get him on his feet and talking to us."

Morgan had gritted his teeth, and put the scattered vials back into the shoebox. Here he was, a federal agent, holed up in the apartment of another agent, and standing by while illicit drugs were being hoarded and used. He had left the bedroom quickly as Ethan approached Spencer with the loaded syringe; he didn't want to watch. His affection for Reid, his hope that the situation would turn around, was giving him no choice but to go along with Ethan's plan. He didn't know what other option he had, if he didn't want the news of Spencer's addiction - not to mention the severity of the situation - all over the FBI.

Ethan had stayed with Spencer then, at one point quietly closing the bedroom door. Morgan was uncomfortable to the point of being livid. What was he doing in there? He asked himself _why_ he was so uncomfortable, and worked to be honest with himself. Was it because they might be having sex? Was he really that homophobic? No. No. He was sure, as he examined his feelings, that it wasn't that at all. It was that Ethan didn't seem to care as deeply about Reid's welfare and Morgan wanted him to. And now Reid was in the state he was in, and this bastard might be taking advantage of it.

Morgan had busied himself with cleaning the apartment, removing dust and clutter and making it inviting again. Hoping that Reid would at some point look around and want to feel at home again. Want to _feel_ anything at all.

"What do we do next?" he was asking now, as they settled into chairs in the living room.

"We wait to see what Spencer wants to do," said Ethan, taking a sip of whiskey.

"He has to get clean," said Morgan.

"No, he doesn't, actually."

"What?"

"He can, technically, keep it up just the way he is going."

"No he can't! It almost killed him this time! He was out. . . he was soliciting paid sex for God's sake!"

"He won't stop until he is ready to, Derrick. We can't force it."

"Yeah, well, you didn't see him lying in that hotel room floor! You haven't worked with him like THIS, for weeks. It has to stop or he is going to lose everything!"

Ethan didn't say anything, which angered Morgan and spurred him on.

"Man, I can't be picking him up off the pavement again like I did last night . . . "

"Then don't."

"What?"

"You know what your limit is. Don't. Don't pick him up. Not any more than you are willing and able. What Spencer loses is up to Spencer."

Morgan leaned forward in his chair, narrowing his eyes before he spoke, "How can you be that cold, Man, and call yourself his _friend_?" He suddenly wondered again if the relationship between Ethan and Reid was a sexual one. That would explain Ethan's attitude – he got what he wanted from Reid and didn't have to give rat's ass what actually happened to him in the end. He hadn't been able to imagine that Reid would engage in a relationship with another man, but then there had been last night, and the john. Now, Morgan didn't know what to expect.

Feeling suddenly bold he stated, "He used protection. The john. I found it." He watched Ethan closely for a reaction.

Ethan slowly set his empty glass on the end table, leaned back into the chair and exhaled deeply. He didn't answer.

Morgan was about to rip into him about his lack of feeling when Reid stepped into the room. He was dressed, shaved and his hair combed. "Hey guys," he waved weakly and smirked a sheepish half-smile.

He sat on the arm of the sofa. "Guess you are pretty pissed off at me," he tried to laugh.

Morgan opened his mouth to speak but couldn't organize a thought.

"Pissed off, " Ethan was saying, slowly with a low laugh, "Nah. Worried." Then to Morgan he said, "You need another beer?"

"No, thanks."

Ethan got up to get himself another whiskey. Reid glanced at Morgan and winced a smile, and looked away swiftly.

"I was scared, Kid." Morgan rotated the beer bottled in his fingers.

"I know. Thanks for coming to get me."

"What the hell. . . You almost DIED, Reid," Morgan said. He started to talk about the rest but Ethan returned and interrupted.

"So . . . Spence. What do we do now? You done with this shit yet?" He stood and looked at Reid, sipping his whiskey.

Reid shiftly uncomfortably on his seat. He sighed. He shifted again. "Yeah. I am. But I need to do something first. Morgan, will you drive me to J.J.'s?"

~~/~~

Morgan had argued. He had protested. He had threatened. He had ranted. Reid had stuck to his guns. He wanted to apologize to J.J. right then, not after what was to come, not next week. Right then. He had explained that he didn't want it on his conscience obsessing about it while he fought to get clean. He had to do it now. Morgan had looked to Ethan desperately for backup, sending frantic eye signals that the moron refused to pick up on. And as for what they were going to do from here, Morgan had some big reservations about Ethan's being the one to help Reid through anything, but he would reserve that argument for later. He could only mount one offense at a time.

During the ride to J.J.'s Reid was quiet. Only then did it occur to Morgan that the young agent could have driven himself, but had known that he wouldn't be trusted to leave alone. Only then did Morgan consider that Reid must be embarrassed about the night at the hotel, about a lot of things that had occurred over the previous weeks. He softened a bit, "So what are you going to say?"

Reid laughed softly, twisting the strap of his messenger bag, "I have no idea."

Morgan pulled up beside the curb and put the car in park. "Just tell her the truth. Say you'll be better soon."

"Yeah," Reid smiled and looked at the house, not moving.

"You want me to wait, or come with you?"

"You can wait. I'll only be a few minutes," Reid opened the door and stepped out. Morgan watched him walk up to the front door, noticing how thin he'd become, how frail he looked. How young he was. How much he was going to face in the coming days. Morgan took out his phone and dialed Hotch to tell him that Reid was going to be taking a week off, and that he, Morgan would need some of that time too. He'd tell Hotch the truth if he had to – he knew that the whole team wanted to keep Reid, to see him beat this. Ethan had said that Dilaudid detox would take a week, and as he listened to the phone ring Morgan grabbed onto the thought that in one week, he would have the old Reid back again and this would be behind them all.

~~/~~

"Thanks for letting me come over, " smiled Reid shyly and stepped over the threshold, noting J.J.'s less-than-warm half smile.

J.J. looked at Morgan sitting in the car at the curb as she slowly closed the door. She leaned her forehead against it for just a second, before turning to Reid. "Spence, I . . . had to . . . "

Suddenly a stranger appeared in the foyer. "Well, Dr. Spencer Reid. Glad you could join us." The large man stood with one hand on his hip, the other holding a gun. He had a week's worth of beard, and his T-shirt was dirty.

Reid looked at J.J. questioningly, and saw the fear in her eyes then. "Who are you?"

"Nathan Birke, at your service," the man drawled, pronouncing "Nathan" like "Nye - than". Reid immediately placed the accent. South, mid-southern states, Kentucky, TENNESSEE. He instinctively looked back at the door.

"Nah…you don't wanna do that," Nathan laughed, "I'll shoot you."

Reid stepped in front of J.J., unconsciously shielding her. Keeping his eyes on Nathan, he said softly to J.J., "Where's Henry?"

"He's upstairs. He's asleep. There is another one, he's upstairs too."

"Shut up!" Nathan's eyes fell on Reid's messenger bag, "Give me the bag."

Reid handed the bag slowly to Nathan. He rifled through it, "You an F.B.I. agent, you don't carry a gun? What's wrong with you Man?" He lifted out a small stuffed rabbit, looked at it briefly, and threw it to J.J., laughing. He took out Reid's wallet, flipped it open, looked at the contents and removed several bills, pocketing them. Then he took two vials of Dilaudid into his hand and regarded them with a smirk, "What, you diabetic or something?" Reid glanced nervously at J.J.

Nathan dropped the vials into the bag and tossed it back to Reid. He gestured to the living room with his gun, and the two agents moved ahead of him across the foyer. Once inside the living room they seated themselves side by side on the sofa. Reid's arm was touching J.J.'s and he could feel the excessive fear-generated heat rising from her body, and wished that he could think of some way to reassure her. He folded her hand into his. He knew, and told himself, that there were many ways this could unfold, and that intelligence was always greater than a gun. Gideon had taught him that. Nathan stood and faced them, pointing the gun at them, as he flipped open his phone with the other hand.

~~/~~

"Morgan where are you?"

"What? I just called you Hotch. I need to tell you . . . "

"Morgan, listen up. There is a situation. Reid and J.J. have been taken hostage."

"What?"

"Two escaped convicts from Tennessee, Will was involved in convicting one of them. They are at J.J.'s house, and somehow Reid is there too." Morgan watched as someone moved the closed curtains at the front of the house just enough to look out at him.

"I know, Hotch, I'm outside the house now."

"What?"

"I just dropped Reid off." Morgan heard the scream of sirens growing louder. He watched as the first police SUV screeched to a halt beside his car. "Hotch, what is going on here?"

~~/~~


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter Twelve_

Ethan picked up the clothes covering the floor of the bedroom. He bundled them together with the sheets from the bed, and walked down the hall to the washing machine. He'd have everything in order before Morgan and Spencer got back. Everything ready for the coming battle. It was going to be a long week for all of them.

As he wiped down the bathroom, a familiar strain of music ran through his brain. It was classical, something Spencer had introduced him to years ago, and after that it had stayed in his mind, repeating itself whenever he thought of Spencer. Last night, as they had lain in one another's arms he had heard it again. As he had pressed his mouth into Spencer's mouth its sounds had swelled and enveloped them. It had suddenly been interrupted when Spencer had whispered against his cheek, "Ethan. Help me." The first words he had spoken in many hours.

Ethan's heart had broken for Spencer, the minute Morgan had told him about his godson. In New Orleans, Spencer had told Ethan about his friends at Quantico, the relationships he had developed over the years. Ethan knew that doing so hadn't been easy for Spencer, as awkward as he was. Human relationships had always been a dance that Spencer had to work hard to learn, every new step an accomplishment. A dance other people did instinctively. Now, after seven years at the BAU, he had established a sort of family for himself. He told Ethan about how proud he was, astounded that J.J. and her husband would want him to be their son's godfather. He talked about how he intended to take his role seriously as the boy grew, teach him things, guide him. Protect him. It was a tie that couldn't be broken; Ethan suspected that Spencer might believe it was the closest to having his own child that he would ever come. And Ethan knew that Spencer had spent quality time with Henry, as often as he could. He had bonded with him. But now J.J. had tried to cut that tie. Ethan was certain that it had pushed Spencer too far, sent him running down a dangerous road two nights ago.

Last night, Ethan had once more bathed him and put him to bed. Spencer was silent and unresponsive, and Ethan was frightened but gave him room to be Spencer, to simply grieve what his life had become. All Ethan had to give were his hands – washing, caressing, assisting – and his words. He whispered to his friend throughout the bath. "Spencer, come back, Baby. Come back." After he put him to bed, he had closed the door and locked it. He didn't care what Derrick Morgan knew or thought. He had called Ethan to come to Virginia, and now this was about Spencer, not about making Morgan comfortable.

Ethan had lain down with Spencer and pulled him close. He had talked to him about the old days, school, how Spencer had achieved more than Ethan could have hoped to, even while Ethan's I.Q had been measured higher. Spencer was the one with the backbone – Ethan told him that. Spencer was the one who braved the Academy despite possessing absolutely zero athletic ability. Ethan whispered to him about how courageous he was. He reminded him about how much he loved his job – he had told Ethan about it at length. How it felt to solve an unsolvable puzzle and save a life in doing so. How Spencer surprised himself when he confronted an unsub without flinching. "You were always so brave, Spence. You just didn't know it." He had brushed the silky hair back from Spencer's eyes and kissed his forehead, "You are so much braver than I am."

He had kissed his eyes and his cheeks. He imagined that every touch he gave Spencer, because it was made of nothing but pure and noble and clean worship, could erase every molecule of the john. Ethan had kissed every one of Spencer's fingertips, kissing away the dirt of the memories. He kissed his palms in case they had been anywhere on the other man's body. He kissed Spencer's wrists and elbows and knees. He would flood away all the dirt of that encounter with a heartless stranger, with a real affection. With adoration. The rhapsody played in his mind as he wrapped Spencer in his arms, pressed his body tight against that of the young agent, and pressed his mouth to Spencer's. "I won't let you leave, Spencer. I won't let you leave. You are so brave. So beautiful. You can come back. You can survive this. Things can be good again. They can. Hold onto me." He had listened to Spencer's breathing for a long time, knowing from its uneven rhythm that he wasn't sleeping. Ethan had whispered himself to exhaustion, for hours, willing Spencer to remember something good about life. He prayed Spencer had heard something, had digested some morsel of hope. Then he felt the soft lips against his cheek, and Spencer's breath, "Ethan. Help me." Hope.

HOPE! He had heard it from Spencer's own lips. Now, the work could begin. Now all he had to do was pull Spencer home. Ethan had laughed against Spencer's neck. He kissed him fiercely. When Spencer began to kiss him back, he let himself go completely. He felt Spencer's arms tighten around his ribs, and he heard himself begging Spencer to tell him how to heal him. Ethan surrendered pride and surrendered reason. He devoured Spencer with his mouth, his hands and his whole heart. He didn't care if he never loved so hard again, for the next fifty or sixty years that he would be on the earth. He just wanted to save Spencer's life. He didn't want to be in a world where Spencer Reid had self-destructed.

Where with other lovers, there had been heat and passion, now with Spencer there was an all-consuming fire. It began in a place within Ethan of which he had never been aware before, something hotter and deeper than he knew existed. Ethan felt himself falling, tumbling down, lost in it. He inhaled Spencer's scent and imagined that it could nourish him for years. He licked and kissed Spencer's skin and felt that it was food from Heaven. He took Spencer's cock in his hand and lay it against his own cheek, nuzzling it, and smiling as he felt it grow hard and heated. He kissed it with the same full heart as he kissed Spencer's brow. He took it into his mouth in the same way he covered Spencer's mouth with his own: protectively, reverently. He tasted every inch and when he heard Spencer's cries, felt him writhe, he felt his own hardening and with it his determination grow. He wouldn't let Spencer slip away. He would pull him back with sheer strength of love.

He saw a fire come into Spencer's eyes as they teased and embraced and rolled one another in the sheets. He saw life come back. He determined to slide his hands over every part of Spencer's body, bringing joy back into it somehow. When he slid his own cock into Spencer he did it slowly, feeling the response of Spencer's skin, his breathing, watching the muscles in his back ripple in excitement. He moved smoothly in and out of the young man, making it last as long as he could, and felt Spencer coming back to life.

After Ethan had spent himself, and lay with his cock warm inside Spencer, he listened to Spencer's soft breathing under him. "We will win this, Baby. You and me. It will be okay. I swear to you it will be okay." He felt his own heart pounding for a long time as he lay there. For longer than it took his breathing to slow and even out. He wanted to whisper the words, and once he mouthed it without saying it out loud. He knew it would be too much. He knew that this enormous love he felt for this man – more than he believed most people ever knew in their lifetimes – would not be returned. There would be gratitude, and the love of a friend. But there would never be the desperate, all-consuming kind felt for a lover. Ethan found it sad suddenly, that Spencer could not experience the same feeling that he did this night making love to Spencer; and he found it deeply sad that he, Ethan, did feel it and it didn't really matter.

He sighed heavily and kissed Spencer's shoulder blade, and rolled off to lay beside him. He looked at Spencer's pretty face. "I won't leave you until you tell me to, you know."

The dark eyes opened and searched his. "I know." Spencer lay on his belly and stroked Ethan's side with long, elegant fingers.

After a time Ethan said, "Baby, why didn't you call me? I would have come."

"I know."

"Spencer, why a stranger? I don't get it."

Spencer turned his face away. Ethan placed a hand on the back of his head, rubbing it. Then he saw the angular shoulders shaking, heard a muffled sound, and moved his hand to rub Spencer's back. "Why?" he whispered.

Spencer turned his face back toward Ethan's, brushing hair out of his eyes, wiping the back of his hand over his wet face. He sniffed. "How could I call you? What could I say? _'Come and fuck me now Ethan. I need that but I don't love you.'_ You're worth more than that. You deserve better from me than that."

"So you picked up a john?"

"I wanted it to be. . . low. I wanted it to hurt. I needed it to be ugly. You wouldn't have . . .you wouldn't have done it like that. God, Ethan, I'm so lost. I'm so lost." He moved into Ethan's arms and sobbed against his shoulder.

"I know Spence, " Ethan whispered. "But you know, I'm a big boy. I know what I'm getting. I need you too, you know. I need you too."

Spencer quieted. He clung to Ethan tightly. Ethan whispered into his hair, "Look, let's just get you together. Then we'll talk about the logistics of this. For now all that matters is that I'm here. And that you are going to get your life back."

~~/~~

Reid was startled as he was shoved down the stairs to the basement with J.J., to see that there was already another hostage there. She sat on a chair beside a cabinet and watched calmly as Nathan Birke shoved them to the floor. J.J. hit her head on a bed frame as she fell and cried out. Reid put his hand softly on her shoulder as she sat up, "You okay? You okay?" J.J. nodded and rubbed her head.

"Please," she said to Birke, "Where's my baby?"

Birke smiled without answering, "Just stay put, all of you." Slowly he turned and left, closing the door behind him. Reid paced the room swiftly, and then moved a chair to climb up to the one window beside the woman. The window was narrow and low, too small for any one of them to go through it. He excused himself to the woman as he leaned over her to look out at the growing police presence. He listened to the sirens and knew that Hotch was already working with the local sheriff to ready hostage negotiations. Snipers and swat would be already en route. With two F.B.I. agents as hostages, they would be pulling out all the stops. He saw Morgan standing in the street with Rossi and Prentiss. They looked at the house and he wondered if they knew he was standing at the window. Where were the binoculars?

He stepped off the chair and looked down into the face of the elderly woman. "I'm Dr. Spencer Reid. I'm . . I work with J.J."

"Yes, I know Dr. Reid. She has told me some wonderful things about you." She smiled up at him softly.

"She has?" Reid glanced at J.J., unsuccessful at keeping the surprise from his eyes as he did.

"Spence, this is Sister Anne. She was visiting this morning. . . God, Anne, I'm so sorry."

"I'm certain that there is nothing for which you should apologize J.J.," she assured, "Dr. Reid, why didn't they tie us up?"

"Well, there is really no need to," Reid said as he crossed the room to sit on the bed. "They are armed, we are downstairs and we can't climb out these windows. They just need to keep us all together, really."

"Spence, I haven't seen Henry since they got here." J.J. choked.

"Was he sleeping when you last knew? He probably still is." Reid watched J.J.'s face, unsure what else to say to offer comfort.

The trio were silent for a time, and Reid rubbed a hand over J.J.'s shoulders, and stole occasional glances at Sister Anne. A nun. He had never spoken to a nun that he knew of. He was certainly expanding his horizons lately. He had heard somewhere that most nuns were well-educated. At least they might have some interesting conversation while they were here together trapped in the basement. He wondered how long that would be. Hostage negotiations could take hours, or days.

Then he gasped softly, thinking about his habit. He had three vials with him in the bag. He could stretch it out. He'd be all right. Stopping the Dilaudid abruptly would result in respiratory failure. He sighed. He needed to keep his faculties about him, needed to be careful.

"Spencer, what is it?" J.J. studied his face with concern.

"I'm fine. What's the other one like?" he asked J.J.

She rolled her eyes and looked at him, "Not much different than the first. Quieter."

"So this one is the alpha."

"I think so."

Suddenly they heard a cry. . . Henry. J.J. was on her feet, running up the stairs. She tried the doorknob but couldn't budge it. Something was blocking the door from the outside. Suddenly the door swung open, and she backed down the stairs a few steps, nearly losing her footing. Birke's companion stood there at the top of the stairs, gun aimed at the young mother. "Where you going?"

"J.J. . ., " Reid began, and stood.

"He needs to eat." J.J. fought to stay calm, her fists balled at her sides. "Please."

"We'll feed him. Get back down there."

She hesitated, not comprehending being denied access to her crying child.

The convict stepped back out and closed the door. J.J. could hear something being jammed against it from the outside. She slowly descended the stairs and crossed the room to sit beside Reid, her fist still clenched. They sat in painful silence, listening to Henry's cries. J.J.'s body trembled. They looked up at the floor as they heard heavy footsteps crossing into the kitchen. Then after several minutes, the crying stopped.

"It's okay, J.J.," soothed Reid, his voice shaking. "They are feeding him."

She looked at him, large blue eyes pooled with moisture. "Spence, what are we going to do?"


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter Thirteen_

Ethan cursed as his shaking hand struggled to connect key with ignition. He breathed in deeply as he shifted into drive. _Calm down, Man. You have to drive._ His eyelids blinked vigorously as he tried to focus on the road. Damn Derrick Morgan, why hadn't he called? He had to know by now what had happened. Ethan had seen it all on the television during the breaking news alert – the house, police vehicles everywhere in the street. The news crew couldn't even get close. It hadn't occurred to Ethan what he was going to do when he got there; he just knew he had to be there. Spencer was inside that house.

Sometimes Ethan had tried to imagine it – Spencer running after some criminal with a gun in hand. And he couldn't. He knew that Reid had passed the Academy training and that he was working with one of the most elite departments at the F.B.I. He had to be good at it. He had to know what to do in a bad situation. He had told Ethan about some situations that he'd gotten out of against worse odds. Ethan reminded himself of these scenarios as he drove, reassuring himself that Spencer had training that would help him with whatever was going on inside the house. But Ethan still shook as he drove, his eyes still burned, he still choked when he tried to swallow.

And then, when the realization hit him he pulled off the road, fearing that he was hyperventilating. He leaned his head against the steering wheel, fighting to breathe evenly: Spencer was trapped without the drug! Ethan had done the research long ago: abrupt discontinuation of the drug would mean respiratory distress, his breathing could stop, his heart could stop. "Ah! . . ." he groaned and banged his head against the wheel, "Spencer!" He shifted into drive and pulled back onto the highway, new purpose in his eyes. He would get to Morgan, tell him this. Morgan would know what could be done. If anything. Maybe they could get the drug into the house?

~~/~~

Morgan paced up and down the street in front of the house, hoping it would rid him of useless nervous energy. He hated feeling helpless, this interminable waiting for something, for anything to happen. Why hadn't he gone to the door with him? He doubted Reid had his gun. He hoped he didn't – it might just raise the tension level inside the house. J.J. would have had hers, but surely it had been confiscated. Morgan heaved a sigh and looked at Hotch and Rossi, discussing options with the head of the swat team. A negotiator was poised to ring Birke's cell. Why were they taking so long to get started?

He had just turned around at the end of the roped-off area to head back toward the house when an officer ran up and tapped his shoulder. "Agent Morgan?"

"Yeah."

"There is a guy at the end of the block who says he is a friend of yours. He wants in. Ethan Hunter?"

Oh God. He had forgotten, in all the chaos of the day, to call Ethan. He had surely heard it on the television news. Morgan sighed. He'd have to talk him into leaving. The fewer bodies around who had no business at the scene, the better. He walked down toward the end of the block with the officer.

Ethan was leaning against the side of a car, in the usual nonchalant pose. He watched Morgan approach without moving to meet him. "We have a problem," he drawled.

"Yeah, we have a problem. You need to go back to the apartment and wait. I'll call you when . . ."

"Spencer is going to go into withdrawal," Ethan said slowly and took a step toward Morgan, looking into his eyes, "and I'm not going anywhere."

Morgan's first instinct was to want to punch the arrogance off Ethan's smug face. Then the words sank in: _Spencer is going to go into withdrawal_.

"What? What do you mean? What does that mean?"

"It means he will get crazy, Man. He will dehydrate, his mind will go. He will wheeze and cough, and eventually stop breathing. His heart will stop. I mean we are in deep shit here."

Morgan stood, mouth open, for a few moments. "Come on," he said, and turned to lead Ethan through the police barrier.

~~/~~

"I'm sorry. . . we haven't gotten around to getting the basement wired for light, " J.J. said as evening stretched on and they watched shadows deepen around them.

"There was probably no reason to. . ., " Reid offered, grateful that no one could see his hand tremors and the beads of perspiration on his forehead. The thought had occurred to him earlier that he could climb again up to the tiny window and use the remaining light to find a vein, but he found that he didn't have the nerve to do it in front of J.J. and Anne. He rummaged in his bag and his fingers grasped the bottle of Imodium tablets. He emptied three into his hand and popped them into his mouth.

"You okay?" J.J. was looking at him in the dim light.

"Yeah, fine. Small headache. You okay?"

J.J. forced a weak smile, "Anne, how can you be so calm?"

The woman's chuckle came throaty and low, "Being afraid won't change the outcome."

"Where's your gun, J.J.?" Reid asked.

"In the bedroom in a lock box."

They had conversed little in the hours that had passed since they all found themselves in the basement. Conversation seemed pointless, irreverent somehow. They had strained their ears to hear what was going on outside, upstairs. J.J. and Reid had comforted one another by talking about what the team would be doing, blow-by-blow. They had told Anne how it would all be playing out, outside in the street, and she had listened quietly, nodding occasionally. An absolute calm emanated from her and spread over the room, and Reid imagined that it had taken his pulse rate down a bit.

J.J. put her head down into her hands and rocked herself back and forth, "God, why can't they just give me Henry? What are they doing with him?"

"He's a little kid, J.J.," Reid said, trying to reassure her, "if he were upset we would hear it. He must be okay. Maybe he's playing." He laid a hand on her back. "The hostage negotiators have contacted them by now, " he directed his voice to Anne in the darkness.

"Spence, you're trembling."

Reid snatched his hand away, feeling heat rush into his crawled by for several minutes as they listened to voices outside, too far away for any real words to be deciphered. Occasionally a red flashing from a police vehicle crept onto the ceiling for a few minutes.

"Spence."

"Yeah?"

J.J.'s voice was a near whisper, "Why were you shaking?"

"I wasn't."

Her hand searched for his in the darkness and found it. She covered his fingers with hers. "Spence."

"What!" he blurted, "Aren't we all scared? So I was shaking a little."

"I've seen you scared. You are like a rock when you are scared. Completely in control. You don't flinch. You think. And you don't shake." J.J. pressed his hand between hers.

Spencer remained silent, stubborn. He didn't want to discuss it in front of a stranger.

"Spence, if you are getting sick . . ."

"J.J. can we please just not talk about it?"

"Anne is a nurse. Maybe she can help."

Sister Anne leaned forward in the darkness, as if she could see him clearly. "Dr. Reid, what is it?"

"It's a drug dependency," answered J.J.

Reid was thoroughly humiliated then. And angry. He pulled his hand from J.J.'s and folded his arms against his chest.

Suddenly the door opened at the top of the stairs. "Ms. LaMontagne, come up here."

J.J.'s wide eyed-expression met Reid's, in the light streaming down into the room.

"COME UP HERE!" bellowed Birke, and J.J. jumped.

She stood to obey and Reid gripped her arm, "J.J. . ."

"Maybe it's Henry, " she whispered and wrenched from his hold. Reid exchanged a glance with Anne before the door closed, leaving them again in darkness.

~~/~~

Aaron Hotchner stood with the hostage negotiator and Will Montagne, speaking lowly to the detective, trying to calm him. Will had flown in from Tennessee as quickly as he could. His face betrayed the shock he felt at knowing that his own home had become a prison.

"Hotch, I need to talk to you." Morgan laid his hand on his colleague's arm, insisting. Hotch excused himself from the negotiator and allowed Morgan to draw him away several feet to privacy. Hotch eyed the dark young man with Morgan, who stood quietly with hands in his pockets, looking just as bewildered as did Will LaMontagne.

"What is it?"

"It's Reid. If he quits that drug cold, it could kill him."

"What?"

Ethan held out his hand toward Hotch. "Ethan Hunter."

"Yes, New Orleans? You're Reid's friend the musician," Hotch shook the extended hand.

"Hotch," Morgan was saying, "He can't be in there a long time without it."

"Morgan, we don't want anyone in there any longer than they have to be. We're doing everything we can to get them all out," Hotch's gaze rested questioningly on Ethan. "Do you . . . understand this addiction of his?"

"Yes, I do. He won't have long. This thing has to be fed or things get ugly real fast."

"Hotch," Morgan said and looked down at his feet, "I was going to tell you when you called today that Reid was going to need the week off. He wanted . . . he wants to get clean. It's pretty bad."

Hotch looked away from Morgan to the house, his lips pressed into a thin line, thinking. He exhaled sharply, "Let's just hope he has some with him."

Ethan glanced at Morgan as Hotch strode back to the hostage negotiator. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"We wait."

~~/~~

Reid sat on the floor, leaning against the bed frame. He knew that he was breathing from his mouth, and loudly, but he couldn't seem to get enough air. The tremors that had shaken his hands an hour before now crept throughout his body. He fought to ignore his churning stomach. He welcomed Anne's voice in the darkness when it came.

"Dr. Reid, J.J. speaks of you with great admiration and affection."

Reid scoffed softly, "She does."

"She does. I wish I could have made your acquaintance under better circumstances."

"I'm sorry too." Reid was embarrassed to hear his own wheezing. "You . . . excuse my asking. You're a nun?"

"Yes, I am. Are you a religious man, Dr. Reid?"

"I'm a scientist."

"Hmm. Many of the world's greatest Christian minds have also been scientists."

"I'm aware of that." Spencer struggled to sound polite as he tried to force his breathing into regularity.

"I'm sorry, I'm sure you are."

"You were . . . you are here to visit?"

"Yes. I've been a friend of the LaMontagne family for many years."

Spencer heard himself moan, and was startled by it. Then embarrassed. "I'm sorry," he stammered.

The voice came softer now. "What can I do?"

"Nothing I guess."

"What are you taking?"

"Dilaudid. I . . . there were some things that happened. I was kidnapped, and then . . "

"Dr. Reid," she interrupted, "I can't begin to imagine the pain that a person is living in, when they allow themselves to become addicted to a drug that takes the pain away for a few hours. I have been blessed not to have to see enough heartbreak in my life to need to make such a choice. Please, you needn't explain to me."

The absolute lack of condemnation in her statement, combined with the misery that wracked his body, suddenly moved Spencer to tears. He cried softly. Here in the darkness, her soothing voice seemed to come from some disembodied ghost, floating all around him, without judging him. He was afraid for all of them, and he was deeply ashamed that he couldn't even begin to be the man he needed to be – he was too sick now. If only he could see to do something about it. "I should have done it," he whispered to himself, "I should have."

"What didn't you do?" came the voice.

"I didn't shoot up. I have some with me. . . I didn't want to do it in front of you and J.J."

"And now you can't see."

The silence enveloped him and he listened to his own soft weeping, and fought for each deep breath he took. His perspiration made him cold as it lingered on his skin, and his tremors turned into hard shivering. What a ridiculous way to die this would be. Not defending his friend and his godson, not using the training that his years of hard work and good fortune had given him, not using the mind that had saved his life in the face of even worse situations - but lying on a cement floor, crying like a child, slowly losing control of his body.

"Dr. Reid, give me your bag." He was suddenly aware that Anne was beside him on the floor. She was searching inside it, and then all was quiet. He could feel her concentrating, thinking beside him in the dark. He flinched slightly as he felt gentle fingers unbutton his shirt sleeve and carefully roll in up above his elbow. She tied the tourniquet tightly, and he felt her fingering the inside of his elbow, searching for a soft ridge there. She found it and stopped, laying a practiced finger aside it and using it to guide the tip of the needle in. He felt the pop as it entered his vein. "I don't know how much I measured, " she whispered. "I think I filled the syringe about half –way. Is that enough?"

Reid nodded, waiting, and then remembered that she couldn't see his nod. "Yes," he breathed. And then he felt the warmth invade his body.


	14. Chapter 14

_Chapter Fourteen_

"I was going to get married in December." Reid lay on the bed, breathing easily. He had awakened to a feeling of calm, and heard Anne moving in the darkness, shifting on her chair. "She . . . there was a plane crash."

"Oh. Goodness. I'm sorry Dr. Reid."

Reid took comfort once again in the cloak of pseudo-anonymity that the total lack of light afforded him. Anne couldn't see his face. She was just a voice floating around him, offering understanding. "How does that happen? That a person is so . . . alive. That they are here, and sharing things with you. Thoughts, plans. And then there is just . . . nothing. How is it that she was so beau . . .tiful," his voice broke, "and then there is nothing?"

He was mildly dismayed when no answer came. He hugged his arms to his body for warmth, and sighed heavily. The waiting was terrible. They had no light, but there was a toilet and washbasin in the corner of the basement, if one wanted to feel his or her way. There was little privacy. He and Anne had shared a bottle of water from his messenger bag, and so far they were doing well considering the circumstances. He was amazed that Anne had been able to feel her way, in giving him the injection. Her experience as a nurse had taught her how much the syringe would hold, how much she was drawing out by the feel of the plunger's position. How to locate his vein and hold it stable while puncturing it. He understood this now. He was astounded that she, a stranger, had without moral question given him the relief that he had needed.

There had been no sound upstairs for some hours now. Outside, the voices and flashing lights never stopped. But as time passed, they seemed irrelevant. Help was not coming easily. He tried to keep his mind from wandering up the stairs into the house, searching for where J.J. and Henry might be, imagining what was happening to them. His mind ached to work on the puzzle, to analyze as he always did, to find the solution. But when he couldn't watch the criminals, he couldn't profile them, and he couldn't theorize their motives. He felt that the waiting in this basement would drive him crazy in another few hours.

"She is not here, Dr. Reid. That is true. But there is not _nothing_," came the answer then.

Spencer smirked to himself. "I know you believe that . . . "

"But you're a scientist."

"Yes."

"The two are not mutually exclusive. I myself, in the course of a medical education, have studied the human being as an organism, from conception to death. I do understand and appreciate your reticence, Dr. Reid."

Reid tried to wrap his head around such a thought: that the hope of anything beyond death of the organism was anything more than wishful thinking, an inability of the human mind to accept the reality of a finite existence.

" . . .but I have seen things beyond science. I know that they are just as real," she continued carefully.

"But how can you _see things _outside of your own human experience_? _You rely on that experience – on the experience of the living organism that you are - to perceive the world. We can't see beyond that."

"Oh, but we can."

"How?"

She was silent for a time then, and Reid suspected he had stumped her argument. He was a little sad for it. He would have liked to think that she could be correct, if it meant that some essence of Aubrey still existed somewhere.

When she finally spoke it was in the form of a quotation: _ When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I reasoned as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. . . For now we see as through a glass, darkly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully even as I am known fully. _

Reid recognized the words: the first letter of St. Paul to the church in Corinth. Words written two thousand years ago.

"Have you ever prayed, Dr. Reid?"

"No." Reid laughed softly, then was ashamed that he may have given offense in doing so. "I guess I wouldn't know what I was talking to."

"Hmmm. Most of us never really understand the nature of God."

"How. . . " Reid was reluctant to insult the woman, but he found himself wanting to learn more from a mind that he was sensing was well-informed. "How do you talk to something you don't know is there?"

"Through many years, Dr. Reid, I have come to know that I am speaking to someone, some intelligence. There were too many times that I was answered, for it to be coincidence, you see. I think," she continued, "that it is very difficult for a mind such as yours and mine to accept the idea of God. We look for concretes, all the while not comprehending that God is made up of something well beyond the conception of a scientific concrete. If you try to imagine that any knowledge we have is bound by our existence here – not the other way around – you will begin to wonder what lies beyond our limited understanding. And then you will begin to wonder about an infinite intelligence. At least that was my experience."

Reid sat up on the bed and listened quietly. He had a familiar feeling, as if he were a young child again listening to his mother's tales of the fanciful – of the Knights of the Round Table, of Chaucer's colorful travelers. A world of imagination. As a child he had decided that such things were real, that the ideals of conduct relayed by the works of classical medieval literature were the truth. The way the world should have been. Anne's words touched the same place inside him: she was speaking of the way the world might have been, perhaps should be, but not the reality that it was.

"Aubrey wanted to be married in a church. I would have done it for her. Sometimes I looked at her and at the . . . I don't have the word . . . the joy, maybe, that was in her. And then I wondered for just a moment if there was something she saw that I didn't."

"I've found that the persons in my life who were closest to God all carried a certain joy about them. It's true." She told him about the elderly nuns she had known in her youth at the convent, who carried few lines on their faces despite their advanced ages, how their demeanor was never rushed or worried. She had understood early that they somehow lived within a sort of peace that others were not able to approach.

Reid told her about meeting Aubrey in Amish country. How she had yearned to live amongst the Amish because of the peace she saw in their lives. Aubrey had searched for peace. She spoke of it often, as if it were a concrete entity that eluded her grasp. And yet, Reid had sensed a calm happiness when he was with her, a sort of self-assurance that she exuded, a statement into the atmosphere that all was well with the world in the end. Perhaps it was that feeling that he mourned now as much as anything else; his despair came from knowing that he would not feel that feeling again that she gave him simply by her presence. He had become accustomed to it, had relied upon it, and it had never occurred to him that it would have been so fleeting in his life.

"You truly loved her."

He sighed into the dark. "Yes. I did. I've made a mess of things. Since she left. I've failed. . . so badly . . . to try to keep going. I was always alone before I found her. But then after she left I didn't know how to be without her. I think. . . I think I might be losing a lot of things." Reid was amazed to think he would share such intimate thoughts with a stranger; they were the same thoughts he hadn't been able to share with Ethan when he had wanted to.

"You aren't lost, Dr. Reid, I assure you. We are never lost."

Reid was startled, realizing that Anne's were the same words that the old woman in the cathedral in New Orleans had said to him. _She isn't lost, Sweet Boy. And neither are you._

"How are you feeling right now?" Anne asked suddenly.

"I'm not too bad. I'm okay." He noticed now that his breathing was slightly labored again.

"I put the half-empty vial into my pocket, so we know which one it is. I felt one other in your bag?"

"I still have two."

"How long can you keep going on that much?"

"I don't know, really. Maybe eighteen hours." He lifted his chin. "You know, I was going to detox. Starting yesterday. I came to apologize to J.J. for an argument we had. Then I was going to do it."

"Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why were you going to stop it?"

Reid was confused. How could he answer such an odd question? Wasn't it obvious why someone would want to stop? Wasn't he supposed to want to stop? But then, he realized that her question was a clean, direct and honest one. He searched his mind for an equally clean, honest answer.

"I think I feel everything slipping away. My job, my friendships. I want . . . I want the sharpness of my mind back when I do my job. I want. . ."

"To live? Despite the fact that your Aubrey didn't?"

_To live_. Yes. That was it, he wanted to live. He had stepped so close to the precipice that he had nearly fallen off, and it had frightened him. If he didn't find his way back, he would not be at the BAU, he would not have the family he had formed there. No one would trust him. No one would respect him. And he would not see Henry grow up. And yes - he admitted to himself now that that quite literally, if he kept doing the drug, he would die.

"Do you really. . ." he cleared his throat, "do you really believe, Anne, that there is something out there, beyond this life?"

She answered with a question. "When Aubrey died Dr. Reid, were you angry? Have you been angry, when you did the drugs, when you tried to destroy yourself too?"

"Uh . . angry. Yeah, I guess so. I think I was. I am."

"At whom?"

"At no one. At everything that happened. I don't understand what you mean."

"I think you were angry at someone."

Reid's mind scrambled to grasp her point. There was no one to be mad at, there was just a life that had been too difficult for him. There was so much struggle. So much loss. He had lost so much, from the beginning. His father, his mother too in a sense. Everyone. And then he had found Aubrey, and that had been taken too.

_...had been taken._ The thought formed automatically in his head, that she had been taken away from him, as if it were a deliberate act on the part of some. . .

He sat in the dark, his eyes wide, his mouth open. Spencer Reid, the genius, the scientist, was having the biggest revelation of his life: that although he didn't believe in a god, he was angry at one.

~~/~~

"He says he wants transportation out of the country for both he and Connors," said Hotch. "He wants to hold them hostage until he gets it." He had conversed at length with the hostage negotiator after a night when none of them had slept. His face was showing its age this morning.

"That is logistically crazy, " said Agent Rossi. "Are we dealing with an unstable mind?"

Hotch gazed at the house and sighed, "I have to think the motive is revenge, not escape."

"Is there any word on the condition of the hostages?" Morgan asked.

"No."

Ethan had paced all night long. Back and forth, through lines of law enforcement personnel and vehicles. At one point he noticed that two ambulances had driven into the site, and now stood idle, at the ready. He thought it strange how an outside observer, seeing such a situation on the television news, might imagine that it all went smoothly, logically, a chronological progression from start where the hostages are taken, through negotiation, to an inevitable end. But this was very different. It was ninety percent waiting. Ten percent panic.

Morgan watched Ethan grow increasingly stressed, and finally encouraged him to go sit in Morgan's car. "There's nothing you can do right now. Pacing around here isn't going to help you." As dim light finally appeared in the eastern sky, Ethan walked to the passenger door and got in. Walking by the car an hour later, Morgan could see that something had changed. Ethan had acquired the same far-away expression in his eyes that Reid had worn 48 hours earlier. Morgan got into the driver's side and closed the door.

"Relax, Man. You're driving yourself crazy. That won't help."

Ethan leaned his head back and closed his eyes, "Tell me something. Do you think we are going to see Spencer alive again? Or are they going to bring him out of that house in a bag?" Ethan's voice was difficult to read. Morgan thought it remarkable that the tone was the same as it always was, slow, nonchalant. Morgan looked out at the scene, at a loss for words.

"I mean, " continued Ethan, "How do you do that, Man? How do you wait for someone to die? How do you do this work?"

"We aren't waiting for someone to die. We are trying to get them all out alive."

"Yeah. What are the chances of that?" Ethan looked at Morgan. "Really, Man, what are the chances of that? Spencer is dying. We are sitting out here chatting in this car and he is dying."

Morgan returned the man's gaze, not knowing how to respond. Ethan seemed so resigned. Morgan was too tired himself to give a pep talk. "We can only do what we can."

"Here," Ethan was saying then, and dug into the pocket of his jacket. He passed two vials of Dilaudid to Morgan, "I don't want to be carrying this around." He shrugged at the mild surprise on Morgan's face. "I thought we might need it, you know. But now . . . " He lay his head back on the headrest.

"Let me ask you something, " Morgan turned in his seat. "Why did you come?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why did you come when I called you? Like you said, we could have done it on the phone."

The characteristic thoughtful, slow response, "Like YOU said, he needed a friend, Man."

Morgan was weary and his head hurt. He didn't feel like another round of verbal sparring with Ethan. "What kind of friend are you?"

Ethan opened his eyes and looked at Morgan, his dark eyes penetrating, waiting for a challenge.

"What did you want from him?" asked Morgan.

"What did I want from him," volleyed Ethan.

"Goddamnit!" Morgan yelled, not caring that Hotch and Rossi turned to look at the car, "I'm asking you a question! What did you want?"

Ethan didn't raise his voice. He watched Morgan's outburst, and an amused expression crossed his face. "You assume I want to take something from him, don't you?"

"Do you?"

Ethan leaned into Morgan, and said quietly, deliberately, "I want him to _live_."


	15. Chapter 15

_Chapter Fifteen_

As dusk gathered for the second time, Morgan was grateful that as far as anyone knew all four hostages were still alive. Negotiations were slow, but the lines of communication were still open, and that was always a good sign. Now he watched as the negotiator walked over to Will Montagne, said something low to him, and handed him the phone. Part of the bargaining process – Will had been allowed contact with his wife for the first time. Morgan looked over at Ethan sitting in the grass, staring at the house, in the same position he had been in for most of the day. He had refused anything to eat, had barely spoken. Morgan was trying hard to continue to dislike the man, but his concern for Reid was obvious now.

Ethan watched Will's face as Will listened into the phone, murmuring from time to time. The convicts had allowed the negotiator to hand him the phone for a few minutes. Will said few words to his wife, and as he listened his face increasingly betrayed a mix of frustration, anger, despair and horror. Ethan imagined that Will's wife was everything to him. Spencer was everything to Ethan, and no one knew. No one was asking for a phone call for him. Ethan sat in the cold grass, silent, and felt like a part of himself was starting to die as the hours ticked on.

Will handed the phone back to the negotiator. His lips were drawn into a tight line, and his eyes were stricken, vacant. Even in the darkening light, his face was pale. Ethan didn't care anymore – not about protecting Spencer's reputation, his own, not about any of it. He rose and approached Morgan.

"Are we just going to let him die then?"

Morgan heard the question and turned to face Ethan. "What? No!"

"He can't wait. Why aren't they doing something? Can't they send something in?"

"Ethan, " Morgan started to put a hand on the other man's shoulder, but Ethan backed away from his reach, "I would if I could, believe me. But they won't allow anyone to safely approach the house. We can't ask anyone to put their lives in danger."

"HIS life is in danger! That doesn't matter?" Ethan stood, hands on his hips, looking at the house, shaking his head in frustration.

Morgan fell silent. He had not seen this much emotion from Ethan in the time he'd known him. He didn't know what he could offer now to comfort the man. The facts were the facts. Morgan was accustomed to the frustration of working within the confines of difficult realities in any hostage situation, but he knew that this was new to Ethan.

Suddenly Ethan broke away, running toward the house. "SPENCER!" He screamed. "SPENCER!"

Two officers stepped forward to restrain him, and he fought until he couldn't scream the name anymore, until his voice was hoarse and failing. Then he sobbed. The officers brought him back behind the line of law enforcement, and Morgan helped them put him into his car. An emergency medical technician stepped over quickly to inject Ethan with a sedative and handed Morgan a blanket.

Morgan squatted beside the open car door, and tucked the blanket over Ethan's shoulders. "I'm sorry, Man. I know it's hard to watch and hard to understand. But we have to do this a certain way so that everyone is safe." Ethan stared ahead into space and nodded slightly. His breath shook, and Morgan saw his body trembling even through the blanket.

Finally, Ethan cleared his throat, "I keep thinking about how optimistic he was yesterday when he left, and . . . about the way he smells," he said and gave a soft ironic laugh, "Stupid. What if I never get to . . . " Ethan choked.

Morgan processed the words quietly. They were lovers, then. It was true. And to his surprise he found his chest aching for Ethan. For the first time it occurred to Morgan that perhaps it wasn't Ethan that had kept Reid wallowing in the dark world that he was in, but in fact it had been Ethan who had kept him afloat for this long. "Look, I care about him too," said Morgan softly. "I will do everything in my power to get him out of there alive." Ethan didn't answer, and after a time Morgan rose, instructed a nearby officer to watch Ethan, and walked back to the others.

~~/~~

Reid had shot up the first half of the last vial as night fell, and he and Anne prepared to sit through another period of interminable darkness. He slept for a time immediately afterward, and was awakened by the sound of a voice outside - yelling. It was his name, "Spencer!". . . _Ethan_. He felt his heart stop for a moment, as the anguished screams continued, then abruptly stopped. Then he snapped to attention when he heard footsteps on the stairs. It was the partner this time. "Get up, you're coming upstairs," he said and waved a gun. Reid kept his body between Anne and the man as they climbed the stairs.

They were led to the back of the first floor, beyond the kitchen, to a paneled study where there were no windows. It was a small room, but comfortable and filled with lamps. A bathroom was nearby and they were both allowed to stop to use it before being confined to the study. Anne looked directly into the eyes of the convict as he allowed her to pass. Reid noticed that she didn't flinch.

"Where do you suppose they are keeping J.J. and Henry? Why are we separated?" asked Anne. Her voice held the usual strange calm, more curious than nervous. She had sat down on the carpeted floor in the corner of the room, stretching her legs out in front of her, rubbing her calves as she spoke.

"I have no idea." said Reid quietly from where he sat on a small sofa. Then he added, "but I know that they must be talking to the outside. That's good." He looked around the room, his eyes falling upon book-lined shelves, and he thought to himself that at least this room was conducive to maintaining his sanity. He tried not to think about what would happen in the coming hours as he had to use his last dose.

After several minutes, they heard a commotion outside and the door opened. J.J. entered with Henry in her arms, and the door was closed again and secured from the outside. The toddler was half-sleep on her shoulder. Reid studied her face as she crossed to him and handed Henry down to him. She followed with a blanket and a half-full bottle. Her clothes were rumpled, her hair tangled, and her eyes held a beyond-weary, far-away expression. She dropped into a chair, drew her legs up to her chin and put her hands over her mouth. Rocking, she moaned loudly into her hands, as if she wanted to cry and had no tears.

"J.J." said Reid, but she didn't respond. Many minutes passed before she quieted. Then she rested her face on her knees, her hair falling forward so that he couldn't see her. Reid and Anne exchanged worried glances.

Henry, in his sleep, curled his little body closer into Reid's arms. Reid drew the blanket around him, kissed his hair softly, breathed in the sweet baby smell of him. His heart skipped suddenly when he realized that J.J. had given her child to him, not to Anne.

A few hours later, Henry was playing with Anne on the floor, and Reid finally drew J.J. out of the chair and helped her lie down on the sofa. He covered her gently with the blanket. As he leaned over her, she whispered, "Spence, they let me have Henry. See. They said they would if I . . . They let me have Henry back." Something in her eyes told the rest of the story, and he felt his stomach churn. He stooped and laid his cheek against hers and whispered, "I'm so sorry J.J. I'm so sorry." And then J.J. twisted under the blanket as if fidgeting with her clothing, and pulling her hand out from inside the covering she put something into his hand. Cold steel. Her gun.

~~/~~

All they had to do is open the damn door once, Reid thought. He could shoot before they knew what was coming. If he got one of them, the other would run. But as the night hours wore on, he started to grow sicker.

He felt his mind struggling. As he listened in vain for some sound beyond the room to tell him what was happening on the outside, he realized with regret that he wouldn't be able to see the flashing lights – they had brought him comfort through the night before, like a constant sign that people were trying to get them out. Strangely, here in this room with so many comforts, he felt even more isolated from the outside world. He tried to go over in his mind the various possibilities that would offer themselves when the door opened, and found his thinking getting increasingly unclear. He was missing a detail here, another one there. He knew that the downhill trek had begun.

He looked down at his hands and legs, and saw the tremors creeping in. He looked over at J.J. sleeping soundly, finally. He knew that the ordeal of the night before had left her deeply shaken, emotionally exhausted. "Anne," he said, "Have you ever fired a gun?"

She immediately looked up at him, questioningly. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Reid?"

He showed her the weapon. "I may not be able to. I don't think J.J. . . .I don't think she can either. It has to be with no hesitation. It has to be good."

She stared at him, then nodded. "I think I could do it. Show me."

He crossed and gave her the gun, careful not to disturb Henry as he slept in her lap. Reid showed her how to take off the safety, explained its structure and mechanics, instructed her how to aim. "You have to aim true the first time. You just have to hit one of them. I think the other will run."

"What if he doesn't? What if he runs. . . in here?"

"Anne, you are going to have to keep your head straight. If we want to survive, you have to be willing to shoot. Can you do this?"

She looked down at the gun in her hand. Just as Reid thought she was going to back out, she said, "My faith teaches that it is justifiable to defend oneself. Yes, I can do it." She looked up at the beads of perspiration forming on Reid's face. "Dr. Reid?"

"I'm okay," he said and rose to his feet. "I'm doing okay." He crossed back to the chair and sat down. "You need to be ready for this. Be ready for them to open the door. You may just get one chance."

~~/~~

Seven hours later Reid was lying on the floor, sweating and moaning softly to himself, curled into a fetal position. As he had done the night before, he fought for each breath. His body was now shaking violently. His wheezing grew louder, and J.J. awakened. She sat up, looking down at him with surprise. She looked at Anne. "What's happening to him?"

"Withdrawal. It happens fast with Dilaudid."

'What do we do?"

'Nothing, I'm afraid."

"Nothing?" J.J. walked over to Reid and Anne watched her wince in pain against her own injuries as she knelt beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Spence?"

He didn't answer. His thoughts held nothing but the effort at taking and releasing each breath. He was vaguely aware of J.J. beside him. He was aware that he was cold. Ethan's face floated through his mind from time to time and his chest would tighten, but he couldn't organize his thoughts enough to remember why. He heard himself breathing loudly and found it fascinating, as if he were standing outside his own body listening. He forced each breath through waves of nausea, concentrating. At some point he was aware that J.J. was lying on the floor too, her large blue eyes watching him, her arm around him.

~~/~~

"How long does he have on that drug?" Hotch was saying to Morgan nearby, as Ethan felt himself awakening from a deep, troubled sleep. He grunted and rubbed the back of his neck, in pain from a night spent sleeping sitting up in the car. Orange-red light spread across the hoods of the law enforcement vehicles, and dew lay on the grass outside the car. Another day.

He looked across to where the negotiator had stood the evening before and saw a different man on the phone now. Great, one guy establishes rapport and then they switch. But then, it had been what, over forty hours now? He began to wonder if Spencer was still alive, and pushed the thought away as bile rose in his throat. He threw off the blanket and climbed stiffly from the car.

Morgan watched Ethan stand and stretch wearily. He himself had slept little, but he knew he looked better than Ethan did. The man looked defeated. Morgan remembered now how handsome Ethan had been, when he was well-rested and . . . happy. He almost missed the slow replies, the ironic sardonic humor that had so annoyed him only two days before. But that was before he had understood – and it still surprised him somehow to think of it – that Ethan loved Reid.

He had begun to walk over to Ethan to offer him some coffee, when the shots rang out from inside the house.


	16. Chapter 16

_Chapter Sixteen_

Ethan and Morgan watched as the S.W.A.T. team surrounded the walls of the house. One of the men broke a window and tossed in a smoke bomb, and Ethan felt as if he would lose control of his bladder as they broke down the door and stormed into the structure. He stumbled slightly against Morgan and realized he was forgetting to breathe. Morgan's strong hands reached out to steady him. "They'll get them out." Will LaMontagne paced behind the police vehicles and rubbed his forehead. Hotch stood watching, his arms folded across his chest, stoic, silent, waiting.

Finally, a S.W.A.T. member stepped onto the front porch and signaled for emergency medical personnel to enter. "Stay here," said Morgan and stepped in front of Ethan so that the man had to focus on his face. "STAY HERE," and he headed up the front steps into the house.

Agent Prentiss stepped over to Ethan, and stood beside him for a bit, watching his face. She had watched everything, from the time she had arrived. She had finally asked Morgan what as going on between Reid and Ethan, and Morgan had simply shaken his head, "I'm not sure, Emily." But deep down they both knew now, and she hurt for Ethan as she watched the swarthy features grow pale for the umpteenth time. She passed her arm across his waist and laid her head on his shoulder, not speaking.

Finally, the first stretcher was carried out. A body bag. Smoke still wafted from the house, through the door and across the yard where a midday breeze was blowing it around now. Two more stretchers came out and it was difficult for onlookers to see who was lying on them in the smoke and the confusion of personnel milling about. In all, four bodies, living or dead, were hastily put into ambulances and driven away. Prentiss saw J.J. being helped across the lawn by Morgan, into the outstretched arms of Will. Henry was being carried by an E.M.T. close behind. J.J. looked stunned, her eyes red-rimmed from smoke, stress or tears. "I'll go see what is going on," whispered Prentiss gently to Ethan and went to look for Morgan.

Inside, Morgan was gathering details from members of the S.W.A.T. team as to what had transpired. He saw Prentiss coming through the hallway and motioned her into the study. "Where's Reid?" she asked.

"He's alive, Emily. It isn't good though. They already took him out."

"Was he shot?"

"No, but the E.M.T. said he is in severe withdrawal."

Prentiss stood with Morgan for a few moments looking around the room, her eyes taking in the blanket, a chair turned on its side. On the floor, blood was pooled and now drying. The thick metallic smell in the air. A forensics team was already dusting the doors and walls, photographing the blood and the gun on the floor beside it. "Isn't that J.J.'s gun?" Prentiss asked Morgan.

"Yeah, and it wasn't J.J. who fired it," surmised Morgan. Then he looked at Prentiss, "Is Ethan alone out there?"

"Yeah. He's waiting in the yard."

"I'm gonna drive him to the hospital." He started out and then stopped and turned to Prentiss, "Emily, J.J. is . . . she is going to need a lot of help. It got ugly in here."

~~/~~

Hotch paced the waiting room of the emergency surgical ward of the medical center. He took the time to form a plan in his mind. He knew that Reid had begun to detox – Morgan had insisted to him that that was the case. Hotch was not going to let Reid's life at the BAU to be destroyed, not now. And he refused to entertain the idea that Reid would lose his life this day.

He himself and Rossi had already debriefed J.J. He had often been painfully proud of his team, but never more than today. J.J. had steeled herself and told he and Rossi the truth – that in order to gain access to her child she had allowed the two men to use her. She had insisted upon being debriefed before allowing Will to take her to the hospital in order to address her own injuries. Her movements were stiff and sore, and her face had born the evidence of the ordeal as she spoke, but she had repeatedly pressed that Reid had set up the situation: that he had gotten the gun to the fourth hostage and had evidently showed her how to fire it, before he became too ill to be of use himself. He had come up with a plan and put it in motion, knowing that his body was failing him and he was very unlikely to make it out alive himself. Yes, Hotch would deal with the fallout of Reid's second dance with drug addiction later. They would deal with it. But for now, Hotch was going to fight tooth and nail to keep Reid on the team. With everything that had happened, they now had two dead, and Reid had been instrumental in seeing that he and J.J. were both alive. And Reid was going to return to the team.

Prentiss sat in the corner of a sofa in the waiting room, Penelope Garcia sitting beside her, leaning a head on her shoulder. They stared into space blankly, barely blinking, waiting. Rossi sat with a magazine open in his hands, pretending to focus on it. Morgan had brought Ethan into the waiting room and asked the nurses to have someone take a look at the shaking man – Morgan feared that the shock of Reid's ordeal and the shock of watching the hostage crisis unfold had taken a physical toll. He couldn't remember having seen Ethan eat or drink in the entire time they had been at the house. Ethan had been stoic, allowing the nurse to walk him back into the examination rooms, not arguing, not speaking. Morgan watched him and was reminded of Reid, the night he had brought him back from the motel. Nothing left to feel. No fight. Nothing.

~~/~~

As as the nurse walked Ethan back to the edge of the waiting area, his eyes scanned the room for Agent Morgan. He startled himself in doing this: it was as though he needed Morgan there in order to maintain his sanity. It had been a long, long time since Ethan had accepted being taken care of by anyone. Since he was a teenager, really. But Morgan's energy was determined, smart, passionate and reliable. When Morgan was near, Ethan could feel it emanating from the big man, and now he needed it to get through this.

Now he saw that they were all here – Spencer's team. They were all still waiting. There was still no verdict, then. Ethan would still not know whether or not his world would explode this day. Morgan looked up from where he stood talking with Agent Hotchner and crossed to Ethan. "Can we get a few warm blankets in here?" he said to the nurse.

"Come on, Man," Morgan said to Ethan. "Sit down. Try to eat that sandwich, or at least drink." Ethan obediently followed Morgan to a seat near the other agents. After a few minutes Morgan came and laid a blanket on Ethan's shoulders, and handed another one to Prentiss and Garcia.

Prentiss smiled tenderly at him as he sat, and he tried weakly to return it. "Spencer is a really, really, tough kid," she said to him.

_Kid_. He'd never thought of Spence as a kid, although he was a few years Ethan's junior. Ethan had known Reid's mind, his steely determination and ambition when he had entered the academy. That determination that had shown its face again when he beat the drugs the first time around. And his beauty – he had known that.

Ethan had searched for beauty in many a corner of his existence through the years, often in vain. He found it in his music at times, but not every time he touched the keys. It would come stealthily, a surprise, through the fog of liquor and crowds, on a random night at the club. Suddenly the notes of a much-played song would sound new, some sort of temporary magic floating to his ears in their sound. He looked at the architecture of his own apartment building, at the French Quarter, the old shop fronts and houses, the churches, and he saw some beauty there, but it still seemed unattainable, evading his influence. His natural personality allowed him to avoid thinking about it much – his existence. It was a quiet one, with tiny moments of beauty, but nothing large or lasting.

His family didn't much contact him now, or vice versa. When he had moved to New Orleans to start a new life, he had left much behind. Every day he walked past the cathedral and felt unwelcome in the faith of his parents. No one had really ever said that he was, it was just a feeling he had acquired somehow. He still wore a cross around his neck, every day of his life, in honor of some distant childhood memory of taking comfort in the symbol. Now, although it still offered him comfort as he fingered it, the imprint from those years ago being a deep and lasting one, he couldn't remember really what the symbol should mean to him. Beauty. . .something he had known once in that symbol, in the places it represented. He had grown so far away from it all. And Spencer – he had brought more beauty into Ethan's life in a few short days than he had known in many years.

Ethan glanced around at the worried, weary faces of those who loved Reid. He closed his eyes to warn them away from speaking to him, and quietly he attempted to beg a god he had long abandoned, for Spencer's life.

~~/~~

Reid found himself in a place where he knew the streets, even though he had never walked them before. He stood in the window of an upstairs room and looked out at the gray of an afternoon sky. He considered buying the house he stood in, money suddenly being of absolutely no concern. He was delighted to see that large snowflakes had begun to fall out of the sky, and now the white powder was accumulating on the street and sidewalk. Having grown up in Las Vegas, he found snow an absolutely wonderful novelty. He was calm and satisfied, knowing that this snowfall would be a big one.

He felt a soft presence beside him, one that he instinctively welcomed. He turned to look at Sister Anne as she smiled out at the falling snow. She took his hand in both of hers as they stood there. "Are you going to stay here with us a while?" she asked. "Or will you be returning to the BAU?"

A beeping sound distracted him, and annoyed him. He frowned, trying to locate its source. A voice, intruding, "Dr. Reid? Spencer? You have to wake up now. Dr. Reid?"

The sound of people moving around him. What was that? "No, he hasn't yet."

"How long ago did he come in?"

"His liver . . . not damaged . . ."

"Did you reset this machine? Is it okay or do you want me to get the other one?"

"Heart rate . . . back to normal. . . watch CO2 levels . . ."

He felt a pressure on his arm. Something cold on his chest. And then realized there was a tube running down his throat. He tried to speak, but felt that he was totally divorced from his body. He remembered the last hours. . . the study, his lying on the floor sick, fairly certain that he would die there. The door opened, shots. The paramedics. Then he felt panic rise through his body as the thought occurred to him that he had finally done irreversible damage to himself.

"Dr. Reid," Anne was standing beside him at the window again, "You did a good thing today, teaching me to shoot that gun. J.J. and Henry are safe. Your friends are waiting for you now." She smiled up into his eyes, her own calm, self-assured ones sending hope to him.

~~/~~

Ethan was startled as he heard an unfamiliar voice. He opened his eyes to see an emergency physician approaching Agent Hotcher. He stood in front of Hotch and Rossi, his face tired and solemn. "He is stabilized. He is breathing on his own again and his heart is maintaining a normal rhythm. These are good signs. We've moved him into the intensive care unit."

"But . . ., " Morgan coaxed.

"He has pushed himself to an extreme. He is malnourished, exhausted. The worst of the withdrawal is not over. He has a long way to go."

"Tell us something good," Hotch said.

The doctor shrugged. "Well, he is young and has been healthy in the recent past. You have told me he is tough-minded. Those factors will help him."

"Can we see him?'

"Two at a time, don't stay too long. He is not conscious, and he won't be today. Be prepared. He doesn't look good." With that the physician shook Hotch's and Rossi's hands and excused himself. As he started down the hallway back into the area beyond the nurses' station, Morgan suddenly trotted after him. He said a few words to the doctor and looked toward Ethan. The physician nodded affirmatively and walked on.

An hour later, Hotch and Rossi returned from Reid's bedside. Morgan walked over to sit beside Ethan and said to him, "You have the okay to stay with him as long as you like. Just you. "

Ethan looked at him, astounded. So that was the little conversation with the physician. Morgan had done that for him. "Thank you."

"Come on," Morgan said, standing up. "Come with me and see him. I'm not as good at this nursey stuff as you are," and he winked down at Ethan.


	17. Chapter 17

_Chapter Seventeen_

Reid didn't remember when he had entered this half-awakened state. It seemed that since he had, there had been an eternity of pain, and he existed within it now - treading water, trying to keep his head up. He was neither in a dream, nor in reality, just a terrible lonely limbo where he couldn't communicate. From time to time he would hear the voices of nurses as they monitored his condition; he felt as if he lived for those moments, because by these voices of strangers he knew that he wasn't alone and he wasn't yet dead.

Sometimes he would hear the electronic beeps and buzzes of machines. He would feel the warmth of the blanket, and then shiver with unbearable cold. He was constantly nauseous and felt as though his bowels were periodically being ripped from him. His head hurt. His entire body hurt, sometimes so much that he wanted to cry like an infant or yell out, but his brain couldn't connect with his body enough so that he could do so. He was aware from time to time that someone was sitting in the room with him, and once in a while a soft hand would brush across his forehead, comforting. At some point he knew it was Anne.

His dreams, in the scattered times he could sleep, were either sweet or terrorizing. He never knew which the next would be and so he was constantly fearful of dozing again from the semi-consciousness in which he could hear the sounds around him and feel the agony of withdrawal, into an oblivious abyss. Sometimes he was afraid to doze off for fear he would not awake again. He had long since ceased to care about the passage of time – he had had no real sense of time since back in the study at J.J.'s house. Now, he existed for every moment, clawing his way through that moment in pain and fear, to the next moment where he would struggle all over again.

Finally, he awakened from a troubled dream to find that he was turned on his side for the first time, and he suspected it was of his own effort. He listened and heard that the sound of the hospital hallway outside the room was unusually quiet. A few distant voices, a question, a laugh, a low conversation. Unfamiliar smells, medicinal. The beeping of his monitor. The wheezing of cuffs as they inflated and deflated on his legs. He gingerly opened his eyes, and found that he was staring at a window, and that it was black outside. Deep nighttime.

A body stirred nearby. Anne was sitting there, watching him quietly. He realized that his hand was inside hers. "Do you think I'm going to die?" he whispered to her, not caring anymore whether such a question was socially appropriate given his circumstances.

"You are not going to die, Dr. Reid. How do you feel?"

"I feel like I want to die."

The same low, warm laugh came then that he recalled from hours in the dark of the basement. "Well, perhaps that is your penance."

"For what?"

"For trying to throw away a life of privilege, good fortune and love."

"Love." He stated the word, listening to it for the first time. "What does that mean?"

"Hmmmm . . . one of life's mysteries, to be sure, " she said, and was silent for a time. He could feel her fingers stroking the back of his hand.

"I loved Aubrey. Now she's gone." he said bitterly.

"You were given the good fortune of loving a beautiful young woman for a time."

Reid moaned then and struggled to breathe through a wave of pain. Anne waited until his breathing slowed.

When she broke the silence, she said, "Dr. Reid, I think people have trouble understanding that there is the reality of God, and then on the other hand there is a manmade religious structure. I think sometimes the two have little to do with one another. But. . . people try in the best way they know how. . . to keep a piece of God here on earth. And human beings, being themselves, screw it up quite a bit. But maybe the beauty of it is that they try."

She inched her chair near him, leaning down to speak lowly. She rested her hand on his head, and it was warm. He closed his eyes. "My faith teaches that God came to us once, to show us how to love. That was all. Just to show us how to love with a pure heart. Your Aubrey loved you with a pure heart, and it is that, that you have missed so much. But look around you now, in coming days, and you will see that love is all around you. Turning your back on it, was your mistake, because then you turned your back on life."

"Ethan," he whispered.

"Ethan loves with a pure heart."

He opened his eyes then and looked into hers. "Doesn't your faith frown upon . . . ," he looked away then, unsure how to tell her that his friendship with Ethan was deeper than anyone suspected.

"Yes, technically and formally it does. What we as individuals decide may be different. When I was young I was taught not to question the Church, but as I grew in faith and lived my life drawing closer to God, I realized that things aren't so simple. The only simple thing, the only constant, is love – the rest is just what people make of it in trying to do the best they know how. And now . . . between you and me, Dr. Reid, I think that God doesn't expect you to have all the answers. What is true is that Ethan has given his heart to pull you back into life. That is a great love. I don't think that the God I have come to know could frown upon that."

"Yes," Reid murmured in agreement. He moaned.

"Are you in great pain, Dr. Reid?"

He winced. "My penance."

She laughed again, "You have regained your humor. You are coming back now." He felt her hand on his head, stroking, above the pain. And he fell into a dream again.

~~/~~

Ethan slept for hours in a hard chair, his upper body draped across the blankets on top of Reid. He would almost wake at times and he would feel the warmth of Reid beneath his chest and hear his breathing, and then knowing his friend was alive he would allow himself to drift away again. As morning light flooded the room, Morgan stood at the bedside and watched them both, feeling foolish that he hadn't understood earlier the struggle both had come through. He had been wrong about some things.

He pulled a chair close to the bedside and sat there for several minutes watching and thinking. Reid looked so young with his face at rest. From time to time his eyelids would flutter, his jaw would twitch, and Morgan wondered how much peace he was really feeling in the throes of withdrawal. He wondered if Reid felt Ethan lying there across his legs, sleeping. He leaned forward across the bed and placed a big hand on Ethan's head. Ethan stirred and looked up, "Derrick." He sat up stiffly, his eyes finding and resting on Reid's face.

"The docs say he is going to be okay, " said Morgan. "It will take a little time. He's going to be sick for a few days."

Ethan's eyes searched his, "They said that? They know for sure?"

"Yeah, he's gonna be okay."

Ethan looked back at Reid and exhaled slowly. He ran his hands through his hair. "I must look like shit."

Morgan laughed, "Yeah, you do. How about I take you to get something to eat, and go back to the apartment for a bit?"

Ethan hesitated, his eyes still studying Reid's face, glancing at the monitors and IV lines.

"Hey Man, he isn't going anywhere, " coaxed Morgan. "He's in good hands. You need to take care of yourself some."

Ethan sighed, nodded weakly, and reached for his jacket.

~~/~~

Agent Prentiss kissed the palm of Reid's hand and held it flat against her cheek, watching him sleep. They had almost lost him. Why hadn't she seen it?

She had known that he might be using again – Morgan had said as much. She had noticed that Reid was often short, snippy, even rude, much like he had been in her early days at the BAU years back, when he had been using. But he was so efficient, it had not occurred to her that her friend might be in big trouble. She swallowed against a lump in her throat and wondered if she might have been able to say something, offer him some support, that would have resulted in a different outcome. But here he was, lying in this bed, because none of them had insisted that he talk to them.

Her mind traveled back to sunny days, Amish roads, and the first time she noticed the look on Reid's face when Aubrey entered a room. It was the look a small boy would have had upon seeing a shiny new bicycle for the first time. A look of wonder, of adventure to come, of the possibilities of growing into himself. They had all known the depth of Reid's affection for Aubrey. They had joked about it amongst themselves as they watched their little brother thrown into the biggest courtship of his life, they had ribbed him to his face. They had all celebrated when one day he came into work and shyly announced, excitement in his eyes, that he would be making Aubrey his wife.

Reid with a wife. Prentiss shook her head and chuckled softly. He so often seemed like a young boy. He was an enigma, the mind of a genius, the spirit of a boy, the face of an angel, and at times when their work was at its darkest, he often seemed to be the oldest and wisest of them all. Prentiss had often watched him and thought about the enigma, and wondered if it was difficult being Reid, in ways that they had never really understood. And now. . . she felt that they had let him down. That she had let him down. She turned her face to where she still held his hand to her cheek, and kissed the sweet lines of his palm again, and closed her eyes.

"Prentiss?" the voice startled her, and she jumped.

She looked into the hazel eyes, grateful to be doing so after days of worry. "Hey. . . how are you feeling?"

"Uh . . . rotten, pretty much."

She laughed. "I think that is probably good. You're feeling something."

He looked at his hand on her cheek, and she nervously brought it down, still clasping it between hers. "We were really scared."

"How's J.J.?"

Prentiss looked into his eyes, wondering how much he knew. "She'll be okay. She's home with Will now."

To her surprise she saw tears flood his eyes. "Did she . . . did she tell you?"

"Yeah, she did. She told us."

"Emily. . . I, uh . . . I would have been able to do more if I hadn't been using. I know that. Hotch is really mad at me, huh?"

She leaned forward in her chair, "Oh no, Spencer. No one is mad at you. J.J. told us you took care of all of them. You gave them a way out even when . . . when you were too sick."

"Did Anne shoot?"

"Yes, both of them. She killed one."

"Wow." He stared at the wall, thinking, "I hope she will be okay with that. She is a strong lady. I knew she could do it. She stayed here most of the night last night, I think, with me."

"What do you mean?"

"She stayed and she talked to me when I was in a lot of pain in the middle of the night. She was here all night I think." Reid smiled to himself.

Prentiss leaned back in her chair, her mouth open, staring at him. "Spence, Sister Anne is dead. She was shot in retaliation. She died in the ambulance en route."


	18. Chapter 18

_Chapter Eighteen_

As soon as the words had left her mouth, Prentiss was horrified at her own insensitivity. She watched the color leave Reid's face and he suddenly was coughing and wheezing. Then there was a commotion around the bed, and a nurse was hastily placing an oxygen mask over his face, and another was checking the monitors.

"I'm so sorry," stammered Prentiss as she stood and moved out of the way.

"Relax, Sweetie," the nurse was saying to him, "Just relax and breathe now." He glanced at Prentiss, meeting her eyes, wide-eyed.

She mouthed the words. "I'm sorry."

After a time the nurses stepped away and he was sleeping. Prentiss stood and looked down at him for a time, her heart full. She looked out the window at the light fading into evening, and then she sat down again, unwilling to leave him there alone.

~~/~~

A shower and nap had done Ethan good, renewing both his appearance and his spirits. He slept deeply through the afternoon in Spencer's bed, taking comfort in being in the surroundings that Spencer had created for himself. He was sorry he had washed and changed the sheets earlier, and couldn't find his lover's scent on them now. When Morgan called later and suggested they go out and eat, he readily accepted the invitation.

"You grow up here?" Ethan asked over a fillet mignon. He found himself craving meat after the ordeal, his body screaming for strength. The strong ale surged warmly through his veins, relaxing him.

"Nah. Chicago," Morgan chatted. Now that he was finally past his initial dislike of Ethan, he found himself enjoying the man's company immensely. He was flattered that Reid's friend had any interest in the details of his life.

"And you always wanted to join the F.B.I.?"

Morgan laughed. "No. I guess I'm not sure how I ended up in it. One lucky break led to another I guess."

"Spencer really wanted it . . .," Ethan trailed off, looking into space, holding his fork midair.

"Even in college?"

"Oh yeah. He talked about it all the time, what the BAU did. He was in awe of it."

"You . . . you didn't stay?"

"I was supposed to enter the Academy with him. I left town instead," the old ironic smile was back. Morgan was glad to see it now.

"Changed your mind."

"Well," he said, chewing slowly, "Spencer and I had a little trouble seeing eye to eye on something, and I needed to get away. And I guess I knew I wouldn't be good at it. Wanting to be something and being able to do it . . . those are two different things, Man. Now Spence," Ethan lifted his glass in emphasis and took a gulp of ale, "Spencer got something in his head, he always found a way to be good at it. And he is . . . he is not afraid of much. Good backbone. And he's stubborn."

"You can say that again, " Morgan chuckled.

"They going to fire him?"

Morgan looked at Ethan. "No, Hotch isn't going to let them. He'll find a way." He watched Ethan's eyes. "You'd like him free? To be in New Orleans?"

Ethan smiled a half-smile. "Spencer doesn't belong in New Orleans. He'd drive me crazy."

Morgan cleared his throat, trying not to appear nervous. "But . . . what is the plan? After he is well and back at work. I mean . . . you are close."

"You mean we're sleeping together." Ethan stated. He sipped his drink, regarding Morgan cautiously. Then he said, "Spencer isn't gay."

"Oh! I'm sorry – I thought that. . . "

"You thought right. We're sleeping together."

Morgan glanced at the other tables, keeping his voice low. "What does that mean?"

"It means . . . it can only go so far I guess."

Morgan swallowed hard. He didn't want to upset the mood, but he needed to know what was going on with Reid so that he could have his back. "So did you use him?"

Ethan gazed warily at Morgan. "Yes. Probably. And he used me. At least as hard." He raised an arm and signaled to the waiter for another drink. "You know, Spencer is a tough cookie. You all see him as young, maybe a bit fragile, " he wiggled his hand in the air for emphasis. "Don't let that pretty face fool you. He knows what he is doing."

Morgan cupped his hands around his beer bottle, studying the label. "I just want to make sure that what he is doing – what you are both doing – is going to be good for him."

Ethan leaned back in his chair, balancing his drink on his knee. "Did you know how torn up he was over that girl's death?"

"Yeah, sure. We all did."

"Did you really? Because he told me he was _alone_. Would it surprise you to know that he seduced _me_?"

Ethan sensed the other man's discomfort in the silence, and laughed. "Hey Man, don't worry about it. He is . . . we are good. We talk. We know what it is."

Morgan looked over at Ethan, "I saw how you were. At the house. You . . . you're in _love_ with him, Man." He offered a soft smile, and Ethan took a sip of ale, not breaking eye contact, not answering. After a time the bill came, and they argued over it, Ethan snatching it away from Morgan and tearing off the corner. They laughed.

Later, Morgan pulled up in front of Spencer's building and thought to himself that he hadn't enjoyed an evening out with another person so much in a very long time. Ethan thanked him for the dinner and opened the door. Before he got out of the car he turned to Morgan and said slowly, "I will love Spencer for the rest of my life." Long after he went inside, Morgan looked after him, and thought about how that must feel.

~~/~~

"It's okay, Babe. You've done it a million times. This isn't any different."

Ethan sat in the driver's seat of the car, waiting patiently for Spencer to get out and walk into the BAU again for his first day back after three weeks of healing from his ordeal and his habit.

"It IS different, " said Spencer softly, looking out at the imposing building. "I'm different."

"You're stronger."

"I hope so. I think so . . ." Spencer looked back at Ethan and leaned toward him, kissing him gently on the lips. "See you tonight."

Ethan lingered to watch the graceful, lanky walk he loved so much, the long-legged strides. The determined step as Spencer pulled open the door and entered the building, and was gone.

Inside, Reid stood outside the glass wall that looked upon the bull pit and paused, sipping his coffee, taking inventory of his task. Morgan was already at his desk, something that relaxed Reid a bit. Prentiss was sharing a joke with Garcia, who was heading up the stairs to her cave. Hotch came to the balcony and said something down to Morgan below, who looked up in acknowledgement. Everything as it had been weeks ago; it felt like coming home. Reid felt a sudden excitement, the old fire. Maybe Ethan was right and he was stronger, better.

He took a deep breath and another, and went inside. Prentiss saw him first, "Hey! Have you had breakfast? Garcia made popcorn," and she laughed.

~~/~~

"Welcome back, " Hotch said and shuffled the papers on his desk into a pile, putting them aside. "How are you?"

Reid shrugged and smiled, dropping into the chair in front of the desk. "Good I guess. Great."

"I hear that I.A. cleared you two weeks ago."

"Yeah, I'm evidently quite sane. Who knew?"

Hotch smiled. "Good to have you back. Listen, you need to come to me if things get to be too much. You should expect an adjustment period. You've been out for three weeks, but you weren't really present for weeks before that."

"Yeah, I know. I will." Reid fidgeted a bit, "Hotch? Uh . . . I'm having a little trouble thinking about what happened at the house."

"Anyone would."

"No, I mean . . . Hotch, " Reid leveled his eyes at his boss, "I got her killed."

Hotch paused, surprised. "Reid, you took a risk. It worked to the extent it ended the situation. You know that there was no end in sight. Negotiations were failing. They would have hurt someone badly."

"They did hurt someone badly," Reid said, dropping his eyes to study his hands in his lap. "J.J."

"She is healing. She'll be okay. You'll be okay. Reid, you ended it. Even when you were ill and couldn't function, you found a way to end it. You thought clearly, and you came up with a reasonable plan." Hotch leaned his elbows on his desk and his tone changed, as if he might be speaking more to himself than to Reid, "If you don't learn early in your career to stop yourself when you start second-guessing yourself . . . well, you can't do it. It serves no purpose and you'll make yourself crazy."

"Yeah," Reid said. Then he stood, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Thanks Hotch, for everything. For . . . getting me back here. I know you had to do some talking."

"My pleasure, Spencer. You're a valuable member of the team."

Reid turned and strode towards the door.

"Reid . . ."

"Yes Sir?" he turned to look at Hotch.

"If it matters, I would have made the same choices you did."

"It matters, Hotch. A lot. Thanks."

~~/~~

Reid waited until Morgan had left for the break room, and he had a few moments alone. He dialed the number for Beltway Clean Cops.

"Hi, uh, I am wondering where you hold meetings in the evenings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays?"

"_St. Michael's, Eighth and Parish_. Sir? Are you there?"

Reid was suddenly aware that he was sitting with his mouth hanging open, and the seconds were ticking away on the other end of the line.

"Uh. Thanks, thanks very much."

_You are not lost. You are not alone._

~~/~~

"I'm going to miss you. So much." Spencer lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling in the dark room.

Ethan lay beside him, his arm flung across Spencer's stomach. "Yeah. I know." They both laughed. "But duty calls. Gotta get back to the club, while I still have a gig."

"So we're going to talk a lot, right?"

"You're going to fly down once in a while, right?"

"They will be shocked at the BAU when I take an occasional few days off. They have been trying to get me to take a few days off for like _years,_ " Reid laughed softly, "but I think I'll like spending some time in New Orleans."

"Yeah, well, I'll try to make it worth your while, Man."

Spencer turned on his side toward Ethan. He stoked Ethan's face gently, "I mean it. I will be there. You saved me. You saved my life."

Ethan smiled slowly and drawled, "I don't want you to come because you're grateful."

"I'll come because I want to be with you."

"For now."

"For now." Spencer kissed Ethan's mouth slowly and softly. He lay and look into Ethan's eyes hard, and it reminded Ethan of that first night together when Spencer had looked hard into his eyes, unflinching, needing him.

"Someday," Spencer whispered, "You will find someone better than me. Someone who can love you back the way you deserve."

Ethan started to argue, and Spencer placed his fingers over Ethan's mouth. "Shh. When that day comes, I will be so . . . happy for you. And so sad for me."

Then Spencer folded Ethan into his arms, holding his body so close that he felt Ethan's heart pounding in surprise. He thought of Anne's words. Love surely came in many forms, and if it was pure and honest, it was always worthwhile. It was arrogance to throw it away. He knew he loved Ethan deeply, not as a lover should, but as deeply as any friend ever loved. And the odd dance that they had learned to do together - giving and taking, bargaining, each one needing what couldn't readily be explained - was enough for now.

And so he held Ethan close, and breathed him in. He thought about the coming day, when Ethan would be gone, but he knew that the nightmare of loneliness was behind him. He had come through the storm . . . again. It had been a big one this time, and had almost ended his life. He had almost thrown his life away. He knew now that he wanted it, all of it. Even without Aubrey. There was still hope and future and good things to come. His friends at the BAU, Ethan. And love. Always love.

THE END

**I hope you all enjoyed it. No writer is anything without readers, and we all need reader feedback. Please do me the kindness of leaving your thoughts! Thank you so much. **


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